Using Variable Dating

Variable dating is integrated into many of the system's date fields. Use it to substitute variables for normal month, day, and year numbers. With variable dating, the current date is represented as MO/DA/YR.

By using variables in a date field, you can schedule static data applications, such as reports, to run on a regular basis. For example, when scheduling a report to run monthly using a date range from the first of the month to the end of the month, you would enter MO/01/YR for the starting date and MO/31/YR for the ending date.

To use variable dating, select from the following options:

Month Segment

Day Segment

Year Segment

  • MO for the current month.

  • FB for the Fiscal (Year) Beginning month. This month is defined in control file maintenance.

  • FE for the Fiscal (Year) Ending month. The system calculates this is 12 months after the fiscal year beginning month.

  • DA for the current day.

  • FB for the Fiscal (Month) Beginning day. The first calendar day following the previous month’s End of Month (EOM) day.

  • FE for the Fiscal (Month) Ending day . Each month’s EOM day is defined in a Control File Maintenance record.

  • YR for the current year.

  • -1 to -9 for one to nine months/days/years in the past.

  • -A to -Z for 10 to 36 months/days/years in the past.

  • +1 to +9 for one to nine months/days/years in the future.

  • +A to +Z for 10 to 36 months/days/years in the future.

Also use Variable Dating to substitute a fixed value for any portion of the MO/DA/YR variable. For example:

To run a report...

Enter...

Starting on the first day of the previous month of the current year through the last day of the current month of the current year

  1. -1/01/YR for the Start Date.

  2. MO/31/YR for the End Date.

For a ten day period centered on today

  1. MO/-5/YR for the Start Date (the current date minus five days).

  2. MO/+5/YR for the End Date (the current date plus five days).

For a fiscal year

  1. If your company's fiscal year beginning month is July, June's End of Month day is the 30th, FB/FB/95 for the Start Date.

  2. FE/FE/96 for the End Date.

  • Daily

  • Weekly

  • Monthly

  • For the month-to-date

  1. Enter one of the following for the Start Date:

  2. MO/DA/YR - daily

  3. MO/-6/YR - weekly

  4. MO/FB/YR - monthly

  5. MO/01/YR - month-to-date

  1. For the End Date, MO/DA/YR, except for monthly reports: enter .MO/FE/YR

  2. Use the Opts hot key.

  3. Select Scheduling.

  4. Enter a time (for example, 10 P.M.) under Start Time.

  5. For daily reports and month-to-date reports, press Enter to use the present date as the Start Date.

  6. For weekly and monthly reports, the date for the coming Saturday as the Start Date or the month end date as the Start Date respectively.

  7. An asterisk (*) by Daily to have it run daily for daily and month-to-date reports; an (*) by Weekly or by Monthly to have it run weekly or monthly, respectively.

  8. Press Esc.

Note: To set up repeated runs of a report, use the Phantom Scheduler.

See Also:

Field Guidelines

Phantom Processing Overview