To effectively measure progress, it's important to incorporate reporting periods in ClearPoint. With this, you can easily compare your performance over different time frames to identify growth, decline, or seasonal trends. This can also help you benchmark your performance against competitors or internal targets during specific periods, allowing you to adjust your strategy accordingly.
Adding a Reporting Period
In this example, we are going to add the Reporting Period for January 2024.
From the Control Panel click on System Settings
Select Reporting Periods
Click on the Plus icon
Under Period Name, enter the name of the new reporting period, in this example, ‘Jan-24’.
We recommend adding the period labeled with the abbreviated month and year, for example, the January 2024 period would be “Jan-24”.
Select a Period Date from the calendar menu
This should correspond to the last day of the period (e.g., 1/31/24 for January 2024).
We root the reporting period in the last day of the month because it generally would not make sense to report out on a month that has not finished yet.
We recommend that your base reporting periods be months (you can then use these to report quarterly, annually, etc.).
Navigate to the Scorecards tab
Mark the checkboxes next to the Scorecards you want to apply these Reporting Periods to.
If nothing is selected, this period will be available in all Scorecards.
Note: Whenever possible, do not make reporting periods scorecard-specific. This will make period management easier going forward.
Adding multiple Reporting Periods
Creating the period spreadsheet in Excel
In Excel, enter the period labels (e.g., ‘Feb-24’) in one column and the corresponding period end-dates (e.g., 2/29/23) in the next column. Keep in mind that each period must have a unique end date.
Note: It helps to set the first column of data type as Text, so that Excel does not automatically change the format from Feb-24 to 24-Feb.
You can simply copy the values from the table below that includes periods for the 2024 year.
Feb-24 | 2/29/2024 |
Mar-24 | 3/31/2024 |
Apr-24 | 4/30/2024 |
May-24 | 5/31/2024 |
Jun-24 | 6/30/2024 |
Jul-24 | 7/31/2024 |
Aug-24 | 8/31/2024 |
Sep-24 | 9/30/2024 |
Oct 24 | 10/31/2024 |
Nov-24 | 11/30/2024 |
Dec-24 | 12/31/2024 |
Adding multiple periods in ClearPoint
From the Control Panel click on System Settings
Select Reporting Periods
Click on the dropdown menu next to the Plus icon
Select Add Multiple
Place your cursor on the first cell of the Period Names grid, and use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+V to paste the values from the Excel sheet into the grid.
Navigate to the Scorecards tab
Mark the checkboxes next to the Scorecards you want to apply these Reporting Periods to.
If nothing is selected, this period will be available in all Scorecards.
Once you are done with your changes, click Save
You will be prompted to confirm the Period creation
Note: Unless there is a particular reason you want to restrict the periods to certain scorecards, it is simplest to leave none selected. That way, the periods will be available automatically in newly added scorecards.
Locking periods
Locking a reporting period prevents further changes from being made to the data and update fields for that period. This function allows administrators to monitor data entry and late entries after the end of a reporting period. You can lock a period globally, or you can schedule the period to lock automatically on a by-scorecard basis.
Locking periods globally
From the Control Panel click on System Settings
Select Reporting Periods
Click the edit Pencil icon next to the desired period
Mark the checkbox next to Locked Period
Once you are done with your changes, click Save
This will lock the period in all scorecards
Schedule period to Lock by Scorecard
From the Control Panel click on System Settings
Select Reporting Periods
Click the edit Pencil icon next to the desired period
Navigate to the Auto Period Locking tab
Specify a date across all scorecards under Set for All Scorecards
Click on Copy to All Scorecards
Once you are done with your changes, click Save
Period options
From the Control Panel click on System Settings
Select Reporting Periods
Click the edit Pencil icon next to the desired period
In the Period edit window, you will see all the period options:
Lock Period, prevents further changes from being made to the data and update fields for that period.
Archived, archived reporting periods will not be displayed in any element data table or period selector.
Data from archived periods will be excluded from calculations.
Default Period means that users will see this period when they log into the system.
If no default period is selected, ClearPoint will display the most recently completed period when users log in.
Hidden Period hides the period everywhere except the Reporting Periods page in ClearPoint. That means it will be hidden from the Period Selector, hidden from all measure data tables, and will not be used in calculations.
Hidden periods are helpful when you don’t want users to be able to access either historic periods or future periods.
Non-Reporting Period hides the period only from the Period Selector.
You will still be able to use this period in data tables and reporting frequencies.
Non-reporting periods are useful if you are reporting on something more frequently than monthly but do not want it to apply to the whole account.
If you are reporting on a specific item in your account biweekly, for example, you may make biweekly periods and mark them as Non-Reporting Periods. In this instance, you would still see the biweekly periods in a data table in order to input your data, but it would not clutter and confuse the period selector with additional periods on top of monthly.
