Time Frames and Dates on Reports and Utilities

In order to effectively use Emplifi Agent reports and utilities, you need to understand the concept of "time frames" as used in Emplifi Agent, and how to specify date ranges using time frames.

Time Frame

In simplest terms, a time frame is a unit of measurement for time.

Most common examples:

• Hour

• Day

• Week

• Month

• Quarter

• Year

Your Emplifi Agent administrator can also define custom time frames in addition to the standard time frames. These could be any additional time frames that have specific meaning within your organization (for example, fiscal quarter and fiscal year). For more information about time frames, see Time Frames Overview.

In most cases, when a report or utility requests a date range, you must first select a time frame. The time frame is then used in specifying the date range, as described below.

Specifying Absolute Dates

When you enter a date into an Emplifi Agent report or utility, you generally use the following format (the format may differ slightly depending on the localization settings for your country):

mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm

Hours can be entered either in 24-hour format, or in 12-hour format with an AM or PM designator.

There are also shortcuts you can use to enter a date based on today's date and the selected time frame. Simply enter a number, and the system will calculate the correct date. A value of 0 is used to indicate the current period. A negative or positive number indicates that the system should calculate that number of periods in the past or future.

Examples of Dates Based on Today's Date:

The examples are based on today's date being March 23, 2016.

When a relative value is specified in a From field, the system selects the starting date of the time frame. But when it is entered into a To field, the system selects the ending date of the time frame.

Specifying Relative Dates Using Time Frames

Time frames give you a powerful way to enter relative dates on reports and utilities, without having to necessarily know the starting and ending dates of the time frame. This is especially useful if you intend to save the report or utility as a favorite that you plan to use on a regular basis.

Instead of entering an absolute date, you indicate which time frame periods the report should cover. This is done similar to the above method, except that you prefix the numeric value with a "p" to indicate a relative period.

Examples on Entering Relative Dates:

To run a report covering the last calendar year:

• Time Frame = "Year"

• From Date = "p-1"

• To Date = "p-1"

To run a report covering the last four quarters:

• Time Frame = "Quarter"

• From Date = "p-4"

• To Date = "p-1"

Additional Information for Specifying Dates

• You can use "t" to specify relative dates based on today's date.

• When using the values "Today," "This Period," and "This Period-1" they are not translated to other languages and will always display in English. This is true when entering "t," "p," "p-1," or when selecting the options from a drop-down.

• Specifying the last four weeks is not the same as specifying the last month. A given week may start in one month and end in the next. A common pitfall on reports is to select data by month, but break it down by week in the report. The results might not be accurate because the two may cover a different span of days.

• The system always calculates "ending dates" as the day after the end of the period, at 12:00 a.m. This ensures that all data from the final day of the period is included in the report/utility.