Understanding Registration Completed On

Registration exports need a date that says when a registration actually finished, not when it was created or last touched. The Registration Completed On column carries that date, and it fills in only once the workflow reaches its end. Read on for what sets it, and what an empty value means.

Why this matters

Until this column existed, the closest thing to a completion date on these reports was Registration Updated On, and that records the last change of any kind to a registration, not the moment it finished. A registration that completed in September and had a document added in November shows November. Registration Completed On answers the completion question directly, so your reconciliation and audit figures no longer depend on inferring it from update activity.

Which registration reports have the column

The column was added to some of the registration reports and not others. If you cannot find it, check this table before anything else. Running a report that does not have it is by far the most common reason.

Two of these are worth calling out because their names suggest otherwise:

• Registrations with Status - Abbreviated is not a shorter version of “Registrations with Status - Full”. The two are maintained separately, and only Full received the column. If you normally run Abbreviated, run Full when you need completion dates.
• Completed Registrations does not show a completion date. The report selects registrations that have completed, but it does not carry the date column. See Counting completions below, where this turns out to be useful rather than merely surprising.

What the date tells you

• It is a date, not a time of day. DualEnroll records the calendar day a registration concluded. If your spreadsheet shows a time alongside it, that time is always midnight. It is not the hour the registration finished. The two neighbouring columns, Registration Started On and Registration Updated On, do carry a real time of day, so do not read the three as equally precise.
• It records when the registration concluded. Including when it was declined. This is the one that surprises people; there is a section on it below.
• Blank means the registration is still moving through its workflow. Nothing has concluded yet, so there is no date to show.
• If a registration concluded more than once, you see the most recent occasion. A registration that was reopened and concluded again keeps only the later date.
• Very old registrations are approximate. For registrations already complete before October 2013, this column was filled in from the last-updated value at the time, the very figure the column exists to replace. Treat dates that old as indicative rather than exact.

How the three date columns differ

Why a declined registration can show a completion date

DualEnroll treats a registration as concluded once it stops moving through its workflow, and that happens both when a registration finishes successfully and when it is declined. Both outcomes write the same date, so a declined registration carries a Registration Completed On value just as an enrolled one does.

The column on its own therefore tells you when a registration stopped, not how it ended. To separate the two, read it alongside the registration’s status column in the same report, which distinguishes a completed registration from one that was declined or withdrawn.

Counting completions for reconciliation

The two reports have opposite strengths, which is worth knowing before you build a figure:

• Registrations with Status - Full gives you the date, but includes registrations that concluded by being declined. Filter by status to get a clean count.
• Completed Registrations already selects only registrations that completed and enrolled, so its row count needs no filtering, but it does not show you when each one completed.

For a count of registrations that genuinely completed within a period, use Registrations with Status - Full, filter to the rows whose status shows the registration completed, and then apply your date range to Registration Completed On. Because the column is date-only, a range that starts or ends mid-day includes the whole of the first and last day.

Common scenarios

• The column is not in my report. Check the table above. You are most likely running Registrations with Status - Abbreviated or Completed Registrations, neither of which has it. Run Registrations with Status - Full instead.
• A registration I know finished yesterday is blank. Report data is refreshed in the background shortly after a registration changes. If it is still blank after a few minutes, the registration has not actually concluded. Check whether a workflow step is still open.
• Every date shows a time of midnight. Expected. The column holds a date; the time is filler, not the hour the registration finished.
• A declined registration has a completion date. Expected. See the section above.
• My completion count is higher than I expected. Almost always declined registrations being counted. Filter by status.
• The date is much later than I expected. If the registration concluded more than once, the column shows the most recent occasion.

To see step by step what happened on a single registration (which steps ran, who acted, and how each was decided) see Understanding the Outcome column.