The Amazon WorkSpaces default Windows installation uses "English (United States)" by default which makes applications like Excel assume you're using US formats for dates and currency. While generally this isn't usually a noticeable problem, it does become an issue in particular when opening QuickBase exports in Excel—the dates aren't understood correctly and currency columns do not recognise the £. While IT is looking in to how to automate this process for everyone, in the mean time, you'll need to take the following steps.


Symptoms

When you open a CSV from QuickBase, look at a Date or Currency column. Dates will appear in a different format if the day of the month is after the 12th and currency will be left aligned as if it is text.



Note: this issue has only been observed within Amazon WorkSpaces but the instructions apply to most installations of Windows 10 


Steps to change languages

  1. Log in to your Amazon WorkSpace (if you're not already)
  2. Close all Excel documents
  3. Select the Start button in the lower left
  4. Settings  > Time & language > Region & language

  5. Click "Add a language"
  6. Search for "English" and click "English"
  7. Search for "United Kingdom" and click "English (United Kingdom)"
  8. You should now see "English (United States)" and "English (United Kingdom)" listed under "Languages"
  9. Click on "English (United Kingdom)" and "Set as default"
  10. Close settings and re-open Excel




After you've made the fix, the same CSV in the "Symptoms" section above should now have a consistent format for dates and currency columns should be right aligned.