FirstWeekDay

Integer that defines which day to use as the first day of the week.

Syntax:

FirstWeekDay

Monday is the first day of the week according to ISO 8601, the international standard for the representation of dates and times. Monday is also used as the first day of the week in a number of countries, for example on the UK, France, Germany and Sweden.

But in other countries, like in the United States and Canada, Sunday is considered to be the start of the week.

In Qlik Sense, the regional settings are fetched when the app is created, and the corresponding settings are stored in the script as environment variables.

A North American app developer often gets Set FirstWeekDay=6; in the script, corresponding to Sunday. A European app developer often gets Set FirstWeekDay=0; in the script, corresponding to Monday.

Values that can be set for FirstWeekDay
Value	Day
0	Monday
1	Tuesday
2	Wednesday
3	Thursday
4	Friday
5	Saturday
6	Sunday

Regional settings

Unless otherwise specified, the examples in this topic use the following date format: MM/DD/YYYY. The date format is specified in the SET DateFormat statement in your data load script. The default date formatting may be different in your system, due to your regional settings and other factors. You can change the formats in the examples below to suit your requirements. Or you can change the formats in your load script to match these examples.

Default regional settings in apps are based on the regional system settings of the computer or server where Qlik Sense is installed. If the Qlik Sense server you are accessing is set to Sweden, the Data load editor will use Swedish regional settings for dates, time, and currency. These regional format settings are not related to the language displayed in the Qlik Sense user interface. Qlik Sense will be displayed in the same language as the browser you are using.

Examples:

If you want ISO settings for weeks and week numbers, make sure to have the following in the script:

Set FirstWeekDay=0; // Monday as first week day Set BrokenWeeks=0; Set ReferenceDay=4;

If you want US settings, make sure to have the following in the script:

Set FirstWeekDay=6; // Sunday as first week day Set BrokenWeeks=1; Set ReferenceDay=1;

Example 1 – Using default value (script)

Overview

Open the Data load editor and add the load script below to a new tab.

In this example, the load script uses the default Qlik Sense system variable value, FirstWeekDay=6. This data contains data for the first 14 days in 2020.

Load script

// Example 1: Load Script using the default value of FirstWeekDay=6, i.e. Sunday

SET FirstWeekDay = 6;

Sales:
LOAD
	 date,
	 sales,
	 week(date) as week,
	 weekday(date) as weekday 
Inline [
date,sales
01/01/2021,6000
01/02/2021,3000
01/03/2021,6000
01/04/2021,8000
01/05/2021,5000
01/06/2020,7000
01/07/2020,3000
01/08/2020,5000
01/09/2020,9000
01/10/2020,5000
01/11/2020,7000
01/12/2020,7000
01/13/2020,7000
01/14/2020,7000
];

Results

Load the data and open a sheet. Create a new table and add these fields as dimensions:

date
week
weekday

Results table
Date	week	weekday
01/01/2021	1	Wed
01/02/2021	1	Thu
01/03/2021	1	Fri
01/04/2021	1	Sat
01/05/2021	2	Sun
01/06/2020	2	Mon
01/07/2020	2	Tue
01/08/2020	2	Wed
01/09/2020	2	Thu
01/10/2020	2	Fri
01/11/2020	2	Sat
01/12/2020	3	Sun
01/13/2020	3	Mon
01/14/2020	3	Tue

Because the default settings are being used, the FirstWeekDay system variable is set to 6. In the results table, each new week can be seen beginning on Sunday (the 5th and 12th of January).

Example 2 – Changing the FirstWeekDay variable (script)

Overview

Open the Data load editor and add the load script below to a new tab.

In this example, the data contains the first 14 days in 2020. At the start of the script, we set the FirstWeekDay variable to 3.

Load script

// Example 2: Load Script setting the value of FirstWeekDay=3, i.e. Thursday

SET FirstWeekDay = 3;

Sales:
LOAD
	date,
	sales,
	week(date) as week,
	weekday(date) as weekday 
Inline [
date,sales
01/01/2021,6000
01/02/2021,3000
01/03/2021,6000
01/04/2021,8000
01/05/2021,5000
01/06/2020,7000
01/07/2020,3000
01/08/2020,5000
01/09/2020,9000
01/10/2020,5000
01/11/2020,7000
01/12/2020,7000
01/13/2020,7000
01/14/2020,7000
];

Results

Load the data and open a sheet. Create a new table and add these fields as dimensions:

date
week
weekday

Results table
Date	week	weekday
01/01/2021	52	Wed
01/02/2021	1	Thu
01/03/2021	1	Fri
01/04/2021	1	Sat
01/05/2021	1	Sun
01/06/2020	1	Mon
01/07/2020	1	Tue
01/08/2020	1	Wed
01/09/2020	2	Thu
01/10/2020	2	Fri
01/11/2020	2	Sat
01/12/2020	2	Sun
01/13/2020	2	Mon
01/14/2020	2	Tue

Because the FirstWeekDay system variable is set to 3, the first day of each week will be a Thursday. In the results table, each new week can be seen beginning on Thursday (the 2nd and 9th of January).

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