Most of your Clients have predictable reporting periods using monthly, quarterly, annual, fiscal annual, or 13 4-week periods. However, some of them have completely unpredictable reporting periods.
Custom Date Ranges allow for a MSP to create an unlimited number of non-uniform date ranges for those Clients whose reporting periods do not fall within the standard reporting periods on the system.
Custom Date Ranges can be used in Dragon, other reports, logs and anywhere there are date selectors. Once they are set up, date selectors will use the "select a period and number of periods" method rather than setting start and end dates.
Accessing Custom Date Range Setup
You can access the Custom Date Range setup by selecting your client and searching the Quick Jump bar from the Admin Page.
Once you have created at least one Custom Date Range for a Client, an additional link to the menu will now exist on the Client and Form Settings page.
Adding New Custom Dates
For a Client without any defined Custom Date Ranges, the page will look like this:
Clicking on the Add New Custom Date button will open up the Custom Date Administration page:
All fields are required to create a valid entry.
Start with adding a Date Name, and try to use a naming convention that is understandable to the end users.
The Date Range can be as wide as you like, and the only limitation is that the Start date must come before the End date.
The Date Range Types are 'Small', 'Medium' and 'Large' by default, but you can edit those labels on the Client and Form Settings page.
Last but not least, remember to select the Year in which this Custom Date Range lies.
Once you are satisfied, use the Add New button to submit a new entry.
Repeat the above steps to make as many Custom Date Ranges as needed.
Even though they are designed to be flexible, a good rule of thumb is to plan how you want to organize the date ranges for your Client. An example would be to make the Date Range Type 'Small' for a month, 'Medium' for a quarter and 'Large' for a year.
Switching A Client To Use Custom Date Ranges
When you are finished, you should now be able to change the Client's "Type of Year" to Custom on the Client and Form Settings page and use the Save Changes button.
All the Date Selectors on Logs, Reporting, Dragon, etc. should switch over to using your new dates.
