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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.
How Record Dates Affect Reporting
When running a report, activity records are included if their calculated dates overlap with the selected report date range, even if they start on the report's end date or end on the start date. Details on how record date ranges are determined are explained below.
Determining Significant Dates
Activity screens may have multiple date fields in formats like month, day, term, or year. To check if a date field is significant, download your Configuration Report and go to the tab for the activity screen you want to review. In the "Other Attributes" column, if the value says "Significant," the date field is significant; if it's blank, the date field is not significant. For download instructions, see Configuration Report.
A significant date can include multiple parts, such as:
- Month, Day, Year
- Month, Year
- Term, Year
It can also be a single field, like:
- Year
- Academic Year
Note: A single date field can represent a date range, like Month and Year without a day. Learn more about default terms and academic years in our Date Fields article.
One Significant Date
An activity screen with a single date field will use the start and end date of the single date field to establish the date of the overall activity.
Examples with One Significant Date
Scheduled Teaching activities use a significant date, captured as Term and Year. The system dates the record from the Term Start to Term End. For Fall 2026, the range is September 1 to December 31, 2026.
Yearly/Administrative Data works similarly. Selecting 2026-2027 sets the date range from September 1, 2026, to August 31, 2027.
Note: It is rare for an institution's term dates to exactly match system default dates, as term start and end dates vary yearly. Generalizing these dates ensures more consistent reporting.
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.
Examples with Two Significant Dates
Consider a current academic appointment with a start date of September 1, 2026, and no end date since it's ongoing. This record shows as September 1, 2026 - Present and will be included in all reports from that date onward.
If an activity is a one-day event with no start date and an end date of September 1, 2026, it will appear in reports on that date and be included in all reports covering that day.
Three or More Significant Dates
If a screen has more than two significant date fields, the system disables the two-date behavior and applies these rules to date a record and decide its report inclusion:
- 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 two or more significant date fields have data, the earliest date is the start date and the latest date is the end date of the record.
Examples with Three or More Significant Dates
Here's how multiple significant dates affect reporting using the Contracts, Grants, and Sponsored Research screen, which has three date fields: Submitted Date, Funding Start Date, and Funding End Date. Consider a record with these dates:
- Submitted Date: February 10, 2026
- Funding Start Date: July 1, 2026
- Funding End Date: December 31, 2026
Running a report for September 1, 2026 to May 31, 2027 yields different results depending on which dates are entered:
- If all three dates are entered, the record spans from Submitted Date to Funding End Date (February 10, 2026 - December 31, 2026) and appears in the report since it overlaps the range.
- If only Submitted Date and Funding Start Date are entered, the record spans those dates (February 10, 2026 - July 1, 2026) and does not appear in the report.
- If only Funding Start Date is entered, that date is used as both start and end (July 1, 2026), so the record does not appear 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).