Seasons
Table of Contents
What are Seasons?
Navigating Seasons
What are Seasons?
In CutTime, Seasons are spans of time during which your program data will be grouped together.
For the typical school-based program a season will most likely line up with a school year, but seasons can also be set up on other schedules to accommodate things like drum corps (which might begin their season in November), community groups (which might begin their season in the early Spring), or even groups that might have multiple seasons in a calendar year. The number of seasons you have, as well as when they begin and end, is entirely decided by the full-access users in your program!
How is a season different than a program?
The majority of the data in your CutTime account will either be associated with your program or with a season.
- Program data is data that remains mostly consistent from season to season. Program data includes:
- Basic information such as the name of your program and the time zone
- The Users associated with your program
- Group names
- Inventory items
- Seasons
- Season data is data that is expected to change from season to season. Season data includes:
- Program memberships
- Group rosters
- Student Financial records
- Announcements
- Events
- Inventory assignments
When one season ends and a new season begins, program data will automatically carry into the next season while season data will begin with a blank slate. See below for more information about wrapping up a season.
Navigating Seasons
A benefit of CutTime's approach to Seasons is that season data is preserved even after the season ends. In other words, when you begin a new season, you can still toggle back to the old season and view all of its data.
Season navigation functionality is limited to only users with full permissions.
Viewing Seasons
To view your program's seasons:
- Navigate to Program Settings from your sidebar
- Under the "Seasons" subheader, click Manage Seasons
Alternatively, you can click on the season title beneath your program name on the top left side of your screen.
On the "Seasons" page, you will see a list of seasons created for your program listed in chronological order by estimated start date.
The estimated start date is purely cosmetic and does not affect functionality.
Creating and Editing Seasons
You can create a new season for your program by clicking the "Create season" button. This will not automatically end your current season.
You can click the "Edit" button to change a season's name, change a season's estimated start date, or designate a season as the "default."
Toggling Between Seasons - "Default" Season
CutTime allows you to view the data for any season by designating it as the "default season." When you navigate through your program using the sidebar links, the data you see will be the data associated with whatever season you have designated as the default. You can always check which season is set to your default by checking the top left side of your screen beneath your program's name.
In most cases your default season would be the current season, but you can temporarily set a previous season to be the default if you need to view any historical data for that season. If you do this, just make sure to go back to your Seasons page and set the default back to the current season when you're done!
Wrapping Up a Season
When you reach the end of a season and you're ready to begin a new one, you'll go through a workflow called the Season Wrap Up. This process will allow you to quickly and efficiently go through your program members and determine who is and is not returning next season, how to handle their financial balances, and how to handle any active inventory assignments that remain at the end of the current season. For more information about the Season Wrap Up, click here: Season Wrap Up. For more information about the End-of-Year process as a whole, click here: End-of-Year Overview.
Note that once a season is wrapped up using the workflow described above, it will say "Wrap Up Completed" in the Seasons table. You will also see a notice at the top of your screen reminding you that you're viewing a wrapped up season.
Seasons for Members and Guardians
If a program member has memberships in multiple seasons for your program, they will be able to see each season's dashboard when they log in using their Magic Link. The same goes for any guardians connected to that member.
After a season is wrapped up, they will still be able to access that information, but it will be moved to an "Inactive seasons" dropdown to avoid cluttering up their programs dashboard. Although members and guardians can still view data for wrapped up seasons when they log in, their ability to make online payments in a wrapped up season is disabled.
