There are 2 ways to make a period selection at the period tab by using:
- Actual Periods - uses a specific set date or date range. e.g. 15 January 2009, January to December 2009, Quarter 1 2009 etc. They are the default view of the Period calendar. You can tell if you are in Actual periods as it will show a calendar on screen. Future dates are also available here by clicking on the Future Dates button. Future dates will appear with a red background.
- Relative Periods - uses a representative time period relative to the end of the current database date. e.g. Year to Date (YTD), Moving Annual Total (MAT), January -1 (January 1 year back) etc.
To switch between Actual and Relative periods - you need to change the Period Type option in the Period Sub Menu (see image below & refer to Period Sub Menu for more information).
Click on the arrow to the right of Period Type and select either Actual periods or Relative Periods from the menu. The one selected will appear beside 'Period type:...' in the Sub Menu. The default setting is Actual Periods.
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NOTE: a report can contain both actual and relative periods in the selection if necessary. e.g you can run January 2009 from actual and January-1 from relative in the same report |
To create a Period selection with ACTUAL Current Database periods
- Make sure the Sub Menu has the right options chosen to display what is needed in the calendar below - in particular that Period Type is set to Actual Periods. However you can also set items such as: Year Start, Day Mask etc. See Period Sub Menu for more information
- Make sure the Breakout Arrow (the little orange arrow above the period options in the calendar) is above the period required.
i.e. if you want to select days - make sure the arrow is above the days. You can physically click on a month (for instance) - but the days of that month will appear in Selected pane. However if the arrow is above month and you click on month - you will see the month selected.
- Make your calendar selections by clicking & dragging over the necessary date selections within the calendar (the items selected will be highlighted in orange) AND:
i) Click on the Add button to add to the Selected Pane -OR-
ii) Drag the item to the Selected Pane. -OR-
iii) Double click the item across by double clicking on the name. (Qtr 1 10, Dec 09 etc)
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TIP 1: Use your SHIFT or CRTL keys to help make date selections easy. TIP 2: The Clear button immediately to the right of the calendar will clear all selections in the calendar highlighted in orange. TIP 3: If you only want to clear certain highlighted selections in the calendar - a Right click and, if necessary, drag over any orange highlighted selections in the calendar will also clear just those items. TIP 4: Double click on the header name of a period option such as month or year to collapse all items below it. |
To create a Period selection with ACTUAL Future date periods
Click on the Future Dates button to the right of the calendar. This will add 24 months (2 years) of future dates to the bottom of the calendar based on the current end of database date. The dates have a red background to distinguish them from the current dates.
Adding future dates will not impact upon your current results. They are useful to setup reports that will utilise them in the future - especially if you are going to batch the report. As the selected future dates become available in the system the report will be able to include that date without further intervention by the user.
Future dates will be added into the Selected pane with an asterix(*) beside them to indicate that there is no data for these dates yet (i.e they are incomplete).
To make your future dates selection - ensure Future Dates are shown by clicking on the button, scroll down the calendar to the future dates & follow the same steps as per the Current Database periods outlined above.
Click on Future Dates button again if you want to hide the future dates in the calendar.
To create a Period selection with RELATIVE periods
- Make sure the Sub Menu has the right options chosen to display what is needed in the calendar below - in particular that Period Type is set to Relative Periods. However you can also set items such as Year Start, Day mask etc. See Period Sub Menu for more information
- Make a selection from the first drop down box and click on the subsequent options within each that you require. The options you click on will have a black cross
beside it.
The choices are:
i) Latest - this has a lot of options - latest year, half year, quarter, month, week & day for various time periods back through the database
ii) YTD - Year To Date for the current year and same YTD period for the previous years
iii) MAT - Moving Annual Total (also known as 12 month rolling) for the current and previous years
iv) Year - YTD for current year and full year for previous years
v) Half Year - Half One (H1) & Half two (H2) for current and previous years
vi) Quarter - Quarter one, two, three & four (Q1,Q2,Q3,Q4) for current and previous years
vii) Month - January to December months for current and previous years.
viii) Week - Week 1 to 53 for current and previous years.
- Once the selection is made - click on the Add button to move the selection into the Selected Pane.
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NOTE: any date or date range that has an asterix (*) beside it means that this is an incomplete period. e.g. if you see 'Current Year (4/01/2009 - 4/07/2009*) or Y2009* - this means that the current year is incomplete. |
Other functions that are useful when creating a Period selection are: