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In Faculty Success, date fields can be designated as either significant or insignificant. Significant dates establish the timeline of a record and determine if it will be included in a report based on whether the date entered in the significant date field falls within the reporting date range. On the other hand, insignificant dates do not impact the record's timeline or its ability to appear in reports.
Determining Significant Dates
Activity screens may contain multiple date fields that are significant in various formats such as month, day, term, or year. To determine if a date field is significant, refer to your Configuration Report and navigate to the tab corresponding to the activity screen you wish to review. Once on the screen's tab, locate the "Other Attributes" column. If the value within the "Other Attributes" column displays "Significant," then the date field for the corresponding row is considered a significant date. If there is a blank value, then the date field for the corresponding row is insignificant. For instructions on how to download this report, see Configuration Report.
Two Significant Dates
When exactly two significant dates are present in a screen, the following rules apply to date a record and to determine if the record would appear in a report:
- If both significant dates have values, they serve as the start and end dates. Specifically, the significant date field that appears first in a screen is considered the start date of a record, while the date field that appears last in a screen is considered the end date of a record.
- If the first significant date is blank, but the second significant date has a value then the second date is used as both the start and end date.
- If the first significant date has a value and the second significant date is blank, the first date is the start date and the end date is considered "on-going" resulting in the record being dated as Start Date - Present.
To better understand, let's take a look at an example for the last listed rule above where the first significant date has a value and the second significant date is blank for a record that is entered into the Publication screen and has a "date published" of 2024 (no month or day specified). The record will have internal start and end dates of January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2024. These dates will then determine when the record appears in reports, based on if the dates overlap with reporting date range.
Multiple Significant Dates
If a screen has more than two significant date fields, the system will not allow on-going behavior and the following rules will apply to date a record and determine if it should appear in a report:
- If only one significant date field has data entered, that date will be considered both the start and the end date of the record.
- If multiple significant date fields on the screen have data entered, whichever is earliest chronologically will be considered the start date and whichever occurs latest chronologically will be considered the end date of the record.
To better understand the way that multiple significant dates work with reporting, let’s take an example using the Contracts, Grants and Sponsored Research screen that has three significant date fields by default which are the Submitted Date, Funding Start Date and Funding End Date. Suppose a record within this screen has the following dates:
- Submitted Date: 2/10/2024
- Funding Start Date: 7/1/2024
- Funding End Date: 12/31/2024
A report is then run using the date range of 9/1/2024 to 5/31/2025 and the results will vary based on the following scenarios:
- If a user enters Submitted Date, Funding Start Date and Funding End Date, the record will span from the Submitted Date until the End Date. Using the example dates above, the record would run from 2/10/2024 to 12/31/2024 and would show up in the report since it overlaps with the date range selected.
- If a user doesn't know the Funding End Date and therefore enters only the Submitted Date and the Funding Start Date, those dates will be used as the start and end date of the record. Using the example dates above, the record would span from 2/10/2024 to 7/1/2024 and would not show up in the report.
- If a user enters only the Funding Start Date, that date will be used as both the start and end date of the record. Using the example dates above, the record would span from 7/1/2024 to 7/1/2024 and would not show up in the report.
Customizing Significant Dates
By default the system cannot make one component in a date field significant. This means, for example, that "Month", "Day" and "Year" are all marked as significant, and that you cannot remove significance for "Month" and "Day" while leaving it in place for "Year."
Additionally, the system requires at least the year component for one significant date field to be entered in order to save a record. This setting goes into effect if the user has access to edit the significant date fields on a record and can be removed on a screen by screen basis by submitting a Screen-Revision Work Request with the following:
- The title of the activity screen where the significant date field(s) you wish to modify are located.
- The label and field code of the significant date field(s) you wish to modify. The code for a field can be retrieved by downloading the Configuration Report.
- A description and reason for the requested change.
Once the work request is received, it will be reviewed and further updates will be provided through the work request. For more information on this type of request, see Submitting Screen-Revision Work Requests.
Data Import Considerations
Data can be imported into activity screens that have one or more significant date fields through a CSV Data Import or Web Services API. When importing data into an activity screen with significant date fields, it is still possible to import records without including data for the significant date fields.
Updating Records without access to Significant Dates
If a significant date fields have any restrictions (e.g., read-only, hidden, or locked), faculty members can still save a record, but they will not be able to edit the significant date fields. Data can only be added to the significant dates by an individual with the proper permissions or through a CSV Data Import or Web Services API.
For more information about field restrictions, see Data Access Settings, Descriptors and Restrictions.
Dynamic Sub-Answers (DSA) Fields and Significant Dates
This section will provide more information about Dynamic Sub-Answers (DSA) Fields and Significant Dates. To learn more about DSA fields, see Dynamic Sub-Answers (DSA).
Single Date Fields in DSAs
If a DSA contains a single date field, and there are no significant dates elsewhere on the screen, we can make that field significant. For single date fields within DSAs, Faculty Success will scan all rows and use the minimum and maximum date values, regardless of the order in which they were entered, as the respective start and end dates of the record.
Multiple Date Fields in DSAs
If a DSA field contains multiple date fields (e.g. Start and End Date), these cannot be made significant.
Ordering of DSA Rows
Since the rows within a DSA field do not automatically get sorted in chronological order, they will appear in the order in which they are entered. If users need to adjust the order of the rows, refer to the Ordering section within Dynamic Sub-Answers (DSA).