Siebel Consumer Goods Guide > Getting Started > Selected Setup Procedures >

Creating Periods

Periods appear in drop-down lists for the end users to populate the Period field in various screens. Periods are used in sales volume planning, account plans, promotions, and promoted product baselines.

For account plans and promotions, you must define the planning period, which is usually a fiscal year, but can be as short as a fiscal quarter. Because another part of the application might use calendar years, you can differentiate fiscal years from calendar years in the period name. For example, use the name FY 2007 for the 2007 fiscal year and the name Calendar 2007 for the 2007 calendar year.

The baseline periods for promoted product baselines and for sales volume planning must be the same. Thus, if you estimate promotional volumes in weeks, you must also manage the sales volume planning periods for product baselines in weeks. Managing sales volume planning periods by week rather then by month can result in significant additional administrative work and possible performance issues.

To expedite period selection, it is recommended that you include a zero in single digit periods. Some possible examples for period names follow:

• Week 01, 2007
• W01, 2007
• Month 01, 2007
• M01, 2007
• M01-Jan, 2007

CAUTION:  Periods are sorted chronologically by their start date. Therefore, you must not create periods that have the same period type and start date.

To create a period

1. Navigate to the Administration - Data screen > Periods view.
2. Create a new period definition record.
3. Select the value in the Type field that corresponds to the unit for time the delivery period spans (such as Week or Month).

   NOTE:  If an appropriate value is not available in the Period Type list of values, you can create it, as described in this topic.

4. Select the first and last days of the delivery period in the Start date and End date fields.
5. Complete the necessary fields.

Creating Values for the Period Type List of Values

The data delivered with Siebel Consumer Goods applications includes the Period Type values—Day, Week, Bi-Weekly, Month, Quarter, Half-year, Year, and Season. If you want to create periods for intervals that are not represented by these values, create a new value. For example, if you want to create half-month periods, create a Period Type value named Bi-Monthly.

The Season Period Type value is required for the creation of seasonal period records. If the Season value is inadvertently deleted from the Period Type list of values in your database, you must restore it.

To add values to the Period Type list of values

1. Navigate to the Administration - Data screen > List of Values view.
2. In the Type field, query for PERIOD_TYPE.

   NOTE:  For details about how to query from a multivalue pop-up window, see Siebel Fundamentals.

3. Select any of the Period Type records displayed by the query.
4. Click Menu and choose Copy Record.

   The record is duplicated in the List of Values list.

5. Select the new record and enter a name in the Display Value field.
6. In the Order field, enter a number to specify the order in which the value appears in the Period Type list of values.

   NOTE:  Each Period Type record must have a unique Order value.

7. Complete the necessary fields.

   For detailed information about administration tasks for lists of values, see the Siebel Applications Administration Guide.