Open Finance: Default Fiscal Years

Setting default fiscal years for your Open Finance module in unified mode is going to be crucial to ensure your data is consistent and easy to understand. This article will show you how simple this action is but if you're unfamiliar with the admin panel of your Open Finance module, go ahead and check out our Open Finance User Guide article to get a better understanding.

Additionally after the initial set up of the default fiscal years, you can also set up the date you want the default fiscal year to change from one year to the next automatically. This will give you the peace of mind that your data will always be up-to-date and relevant to your audience!

Where to update in Open Finance:

• You can now turn on “Automatic Flips” for each child application, which means that the default fiscal year will flip to the next highest chronological year on the day and month selected

• When “Apply to Open Finance homepage panels” is checked, the following places will respond to Open Finance default fiscal year, as long as they have “default” configured in the URL or config options. This gives users the flexibility to set up one-off panels that do not follow the default fiscal year, while the rest can remain automated.
  • Embeds on Open Finance homepage - when year = “default” in the embed, it will use the default fiscal year configured in Open Finance
  • Expenditures chart on Open Finance homepage - 'Year” field to is now a dropdown with “Default” option; when Year = Default, it will use the default fiscal year configured in Open Finance
  • HTML content on Open Finance homepage - when year = “default” in an embed in the HTML homepage panel, it will use the default fiscal year configured in Open Finance

Example: Expenditures Panel has Year set to Default in the screenshot below

• When “Apply to child application” is checked, the following places will respond to the Open Finance Default Fiscal Year configured, as long as they have “default” configured in the URL or config options. This gives users the flexibility to set up one-off links or common questions that do not follow the default fiscal year, while the rest can remain automated.
  • Header bar links
    • When URL contains “year/default/”, it will use the default fiscal year configured in Open Finance
      • This will override current behavior that makes it so that every link follows the default fiscal year. When this goes live, we may want to go site by site and update the links to have “default” in them.
    • We removed the field “Hamburger Menu Link URLs Default Fiscal Year”, which used to be underneath the Configure Default Fiscal Year chart in Open Finance. That is because the hamburger menu links (aka header bar links) will now respond to the “apply to child application” checkbox instead.
  • Common questions
    • When URL contains “year/default/”, it will use the default fiscal year configured in Open Finance.
  • Child site homepages
    • If a child site has its own homepage, the following features will be controlled by the Open Finance default fiscal year:
      • Common questions (only if “/default” is used in the URL)
      • Homepage cards
      • Focus cards

How it'll look in Open Budget, Open Payroll, and Open Expenditures:

• When you visit a site configuration that’s being controlled by the Open Finance default fiscal year, then you will not be able to edit the Default Fiscal Year fields, and will see red help text to inform you that it’s being controlled by Open Finance.

Example: Open Budget site in unified mode where the default fiscal years are being controlled by Open Finance in the screenshot below