Potential forecasting discrepancies from manually entered Est. Departure Dates

Key Takeaway: Remove any manually entered Est. Departure Dates on POB passengers prior to creating their departing reservation

Without an underlying manually entered date, the reports will always match the reservation date displayed on the POB, regardless if the reservation is transfers to a different day.

Continue reading if you want to learn more about why it is important to clear out any manually entered Est. Departure Dates before creating a passenger's departing reservation.

Overview: Helipass users managing the POB for their Worksite location are probably familiar with the Est. Departure Date field (called the Departure Date in the Arrival Preset area). Since this field was first rolled out to the Arrival Preset area, the Worksite page, and available reports/exports using the data, have continued to be improved. Many of these improvements increased the quality of life for the Worksite users, however, the complexities of the system has resulted in some edge cases that result in unexpected results in the Forecasted POB Reports.

In short, when an Est. Departure Date is manually entered for a POB passenger that data is saved in the database and used in the forecasted reports. When a departing reservation is created directly from the POB passenger record (i.e. directly requested from the POB List), the reports are designed to default to the reservations date over the manually entered time. If the underlying manually entered date differs from the departure reservation date, and the date of the reservation does not fall within the date range of the report, the report will calculate the passengers' departure based on the manually entered date.

The intent of this document is to:

  1. Offer insight into how the data is generated for the Forecasted POB reports located on the Custom Reporting page
  2. Provide guidance on how to troubleshoot and correct the data to resolve the discrepancy
  3. Describe the best practice to eliminate the possibility of this edge case effecting the forecasted reports

Data Generation for the Forecasted POB Reports

The Forecasted POB reports are a very complex report this is driven by many different factors. Arriving and departing reservations for passengers must be calculated based on trips, request, and manually entered dates, which are all important at different times during the passenger's reservation life cycle. The key driver for data generation for these reports is knowing which of the passenger's arrival and departure reservation dates to use.

The data driving the calculations used in the forecasted reports are generated based the date range selected when building the report. All reservation data for a passenger in the selected date range is gathered.

Each reservation in the passenger's reservation life cycle is initially gather, and then arrivals and departure dates are chosen based on the following hierarchy:

Arrivals

  1. Actual Arrival Date for a POB Passenger (has a POB Record)
    • This is used for all passenger already applied to the locations POB
  2. Trip Reservation (future arrivals)
    • Date the passenger appears in the Arrival Presets area
  3. Request Reservation (future arrivals)
    • Date the passenger appears in the Arrival Presets area

Departures

  1. Actual Departure Date for a POB Passengers (has a POB Record)
    • This should only be a factor for historic reporting since those passengers have already departed
  2. Trip Reservation (future departure linked to POB Record)
    • Future arrivals with a future departing trip reservation will be used if it falls within the reports date range
  3. Request Reservation (future departure linked to POB Record)
    • Future arrivals with a future departing request reservation will be used if it falls within the reports date range
  4. Manually Entered Departure Date
    • Both POB records and Arrival Presets can have manually entered departure dates

Check out this diagram for a more detailed illustration and explanation of the hierarchy used by these reports.

The edge case causing the discrepancy arises when the underlying manually entered departure date is not removed. Specifically, when that date is different than the reservation date for the passenger.

If the passengers reservation date is not included in the date range, the calculation will fall back to the manually entered date entered. If that passengers manually entered date is in the past, the report may show the passenger as having departed from the POB rather than still being on board.

Troubleshooting and Correcting the Data

When a discrepancy is noticed in the forecasted POB projections, the easiest way to find the passenger(s) causing the issue is to run the Forecasted POB Assignment report and look at the Departure Dates that are displayed for each passenger. If the Departure Date displayed does not match the date of the departure reservation (grayed out date in the Est. Departure Date field on the Worksite,) the passenger has an underlying manually entered Est. Departure Date that needs to be removed.

To remove the manually entered Est. Departure Date, the trip and/or request reservation liked to the POB record needs to be deleted. Once removed, the grayed out Est. Departure Field will return to an editable state displaying the underlying manually entered date. Clear this date out and add them back to the request from the POB. Once removed, the report will be corrected and not consider the manually entered date any longer.

To quickly get to a passenger's trip and request reservations, click the eyeball icon next to the Departing Date column on the POB page. Both the trip and request reservation have direct links to those specific URL's.

Pro tip: Right click on the trip and request links and select "Open Link In New Tab" to not lose your place on the current page!

Best Practice to Prevent Edge Case

The most effective way to prevent this edge case from creating a discrepancy in the Forecasted POB report is to always delete any manually entered Est. Departure Date entered prior to creating a departing reservation for the POB passenger. You can easily identify a passenger with a manually entered date by looking for a departure date with a white, editable field. If that field is grayed out and not editable it means a linked reservation has already been created.

To reduce the amount of manually entered Est. Departure Dates seen on POB passengers, consider:

  • Limit entering Est. Departure Dates for passengers in the Arrival Preset area
  • Only enter an Est. Departure Date for future arriving passengers if they are expected to depart with a 7 day window
  • If they are already on the POB and do not have an Est. Departure Date, create a departing reservation rather than manually entering in a date

Manual Est. Departure Dates enter for as an Arrival Preset for a passenger will be carried onto the POB when they are applied. Be sure to clear out the manually entered date and replace it with an actual departing reservation once applied to the locations POB.

Try to avoid manually entering an Est. Departure Date for passengers already on your POB. If they are on the location's POB already, create a departing request reservation rather than typing in an Est. Departure Date.

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