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The From effective date is required, and the system usually defaults the system date in that field. The To effective date is usually optional; you can leave this field blank if you want the item you are defining to be active indefinitely.

Date ranges are inclusive; an item becomes active on the From date and remains active through the end of the To date.

If you want to inactivate an item in the future, you can enter that future date in the To field.

For example, suppose you decide that you will no longer classify any projects as "Market Development" after the end of your calendar year. You set the Effective Date: To field to 31-DEC-2001, which prevents this classification code from appearing on lists of values, and prevents you from entering this classification code after December 31, 2001.

Similarly, you can prevent your employees from recording verbal payment agreements, effective tomorrow, by entering today's date in the Effective Date: To field for the agreement type "Verbal."

You can also use effective dates to record information that changes over time. For example, if you alter the bill rate for an employee on a specific date, you can enter the new bill rates and use the Effective Date fields to ensure that the old and the new bill rates are used as appropriate.