Create Custom Dynamic Date

[dr_dan (Dan Ramirez)]

I can’t be the first person to ask this but I am not seeing anything jump up in the search results. When we check the dynamic check box on a report screen, we get a list of relative dates. Is there anyway to add additional dates to this list? Specifically, I’d like to add one that is End of Month + 18 months.

[Doug.C (Doug Crabtree)]

They are hard coded into the logic of the binaries. To my knowledge, you cannot add any.

These are the only current date tokens available:

&Today
&Today+1
&Today-1
&Sun
&Mon
&Tue
&Wed
&Thr
&Fri
&Sat
&Sun+1
&Mon+1
&Tue+1
&Wed+1
&Thr+1
&Fri+1
&Sat+1
&Sun-1
&Mon-1
&Tue-1
&Wed-1
&Thr-1
&Fri-1
&Sat-1
&EndOfMonth
&EndOfMonth+1
&EndOfMonth+2
&EndOfMonth+3
&EndOfMonth+4
&EndOfMonth+5
&EndOfMonth+6
&EndOfMonth+7
&EndOfMonth+8
&EndOfMonth+9
&EndOfMonth+10
&EndOfMonth+11
&EndOfMonth+12
&EndOfMonth-1
&EndOfMonth-2
&EndOfMonth-3
&EndOfMonth-4
&EndOfMonth-5
&EndOfMonth-6
&EndOfMonth-7
&EndOfMonth-8
&EndOfMonth-9
&EndOfMonth-10
&EndOfMonth-11
&EndOfMonth-12
&FirstOfMonth
&FirstOfMonth+1
&FirstOfMonth+2
&FirstOfMonth+3
&FirstOfMonth+4
&FirstOfMonth-1
&FirstOfMonth-2
&FirstOfMonth-3
&FirstOfMonth-4

[ckrusen (Calvin Krusen)]

You want the report to not run until the endo of the month, 18 months in the future? Then set the net run date to 18 months after that?

Or do you want the date passed to the report to be end of this month + 18 months (but still run at the end of every month)?

[ckrusen (Calvin Krusen)]

If you really need to do it, you could use the hack … err … method I came up with for auto daylight savings adjustments.

Take out all the date checking stuff and have it look at the user description to see if it contains “+18mo” and if it does then update the next run accordingly.

edit

Here’s a link to the hack … err … method.

Daylight Saving Time Aware Schedule BPM

I think the following In-Tran Data Directive would adjust running schedules to compensate for DST. It works by looking at the SysAgentSched.LastRunOn and SysAgentSched.NextRunOn when the NextRunOn changes. If LastRunOn is not during DST and the NextRunOn is during DST (going from STD to DST), then subtract 1 hour from the NextRunOn. If going from DST to STD, add 1 hour. here’s how Uses variables lastRun(DateTime), nextRun(DateTime), and dst_diff(Int). lastRun and nextRun were set via Set …

[dr_dan (Dan Ramirez)]

@ckrusen

Or do you want the date passed to the report to be end of this month + 18 months (but still run at the end of every month)?

This one. The date defines how far out we want to look. Some of our long lead time items are that far out

[dr_dan (Dan Ramirez)]

It’s not a show stopper. I have a couple uses for it. 1 is for MRP. We have been just putting in a static date in there and periodically going in and updating it to bump it out a few more months. The others have to do with reports that look out so far into the future for shorter range planning and I set those up to run on a schedule. So it would be nice to run them to have a little more precision on how far out they look (I was thinking like +6 weeks. But I could live with +1 month. It was really wishful thinking.

[dr_dan (Dan Ramirez)]

@dr_dan

1 is for MRP. We have been just putting in a static date in there and periodically going in and updating it to bump it out a few more months.

Although, now that I think about it… I wonder what we’re really gaining by excluding things scheduled > 18 months out there. There can’t be that much (if any). I could just run it wide open which I think cuts off at 10 years.

[dr_dan (Dan Ramirez)]

So for my report example, I ended up removing the flexibility of selecting a cutoff date and arbitrarily specified current day + 7 weeks in the BAQ itself. I am going to test MRP with no cutoff date tonight and see if that solves that problem. Potentially 2 birds one stone.
Thanks for making me think a little bit more critically for what I was actually trying to do.