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Creating Periods

Periods appear in drop-down lists when end users populate the Period field in various screens. Periods are used for sales volume planning and trade promotions.

For trade 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 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, then the 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 Creating Values for the Period Type List of Values.

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