This guide walks you through the key steps to prepare your system for a new reporting year. System Administrators will add a new Reporting Year which will be used for all grantees and sites; the dates of this Reporting Year will incorporate the summer and the following school year. For those with 21^st CCLC funding, two Reporting Periods must also be set up: summer and school year. To learn more about setting up Data Collection periods, including Reporting Periods, see this document.

Steps at a Glance

1. Add or Edit Registration Periods (Required)

By default, a Registration Period with the same dates as the Reporting Year is created. You may want to change those dates for two key reasons:

1. Summer programs: Rename the default Registration Period to “Summer Program” and edit its dates. Then add a second Registration Period for your school year program. This saves considerable data revision time when adding new participants.
2. Online registration forms: If your program collects registration forms online through the system, forms cannot remain open past the end date of the Registration Period. If you plan separate fall and spring registration, you will need two Registration Periods - one for each.

Where to manage: Settings > Registration Periods (requires connection to a District/Grantee)

For each Registration Period, confirm the name, dates, and which sites will use that period.

For more information on Registration Periods, see this support document.

2. Add Site Calendar (Required)

Site Calendars control which dates each site is open for programming. Dates not marked open will block the recording of participation.

• Calendars can be added at the Site level or at the District/Grantee level for multiple sites at once.
• If several sites share the same schedule, it is more efficient to build one calendar carefully, apply it to those sites, and then adjust site-specific exceptions afterward.

Where to manage: Settings > Site Calendar (connect to one Site, or to the District/Grantee to set up multiple calendars at once)

For more information on managing your site calendar, see this support document.

3. Add/Edit Funders (Required)

When adding a session for an activity, one or more funders can be associated with the session.

• For 21st CCLC grants, only attendance for sessions tagged with the 21st CCLC funding source will be included in federal 21st CCLC reports.
• Numerous other reports can be filtered by funding source.

Funders can technically be added to sessions later, but it is much easier to set them up now to avoid editing each session individually afterward.

Where to manage: Organizations section

To edit an existing Funder:

1. Search for the Funder name in Organizations.
2. Edit the Funder with the pencil icon.
3. In the Active Reporting Terms tab, click + Add Reporting Term at the bottom of the screen.
4. Check the newly created reporting term.
5. Check off all sites this funder will support in the new term.

To add a new Funder, click the … icon on the Grantee/District record and choose “Add Funder.”

For more information on funders, see this support document.

4. Add/Edit Partners (Optional)

When adding a session for an activity, one partner can be associated with the session. This enables any system users associated with that partner to see data connected to that session.

Partners can be added to sessions later, but doing it now saves the time of editing each session individually.

Partners carry over from previous years but need to be activated for the new term if they will be working with your programs again.

Where to manage: Organizations section

To edit a partner:

1. Search for the Partner name in Organizations.
2. Edit the partner with the pencil icon.
3. In the Active Reporting Terms tab, check the newly created reporting term.
4. Repeat for all partners working with your district/grant’s sites.

For more information on partners, see this support document.

5. Add/Edit Staff (Optional)

Staff members can be associated with sessions, and their information will appear on the Activities/Sessions Details report. Staff can also be associated with the Staff Meeting and Professional Development sections of the system.

Returning staff: Staff records without an employment end date carry over automatically - returning staff will appear in the staff list without any action needed.

Departing staff: Edit their record with the pencil icon, go to the Employment Information tab, and enter their employment end date.

New staff: Click Add Staff + to add new staff for the year. New staff can also be added later, but adding them now avoids having to edit each relevant session afterward.

Where to manage: People section

For more information on managing staff records, see this support document.

6. Set Up Activities and Sessions (Required)

You must be connected to an individual site to create activities and sessions.

• Review the prior year’s activities and sessions using the Activity/Session Details report (found in the Activities report folder). Exporting this report as a reference before setting up the new year is highly recommended.
• Recreate the activities that will be offered in the new term in the Activities section of the system.

Where to manage: Activities section

For more information on activities, see this support document, which provides an overview of activity management and links to related articles.

7. Register Participants (Required)

There are four ways to register participants for the new term:

Method 1 — Add Participants from Prior Term Feature

Where to manage: People section > List of Participants

To quickly register participants at a site that were previously registered, first use this simple checkbox feature. The feature includes an option to increase each student’s grade level by one. Note: to move students from one site to another, be sure to be connected to the system at the Institution (Grantee/District level).

For help with this process, see this support document.

Method 2 — Add Students Individually

Where to manage: People section > List of Participants

After using the Add Participants from Prior Term Feature in Step 1 to register most returning participants, you can manually enter additional students. After entering a participant’s initial information, the system will check for a matching record from the previous term to prevent duplicate records.  If a match is found, the participant can be added to the new term automatically.

For more information on adding participants, see the Entering Participants Manually section of this support document.

Method 3 — Export / Update / Re-Import

Where to manage: Tools section > Import Data > Participant Registration

1. Export the Participant Demographics report from the previous term.
2. Update the file: adjust grade levels, add new students, remove those not returning.
3. Re-import the file via Tools > Import Data > Participant Registration.

For help with the participant import process, see this support document.

Method 4 — Online Registration Forms

Where to manage: Settings section > Registration Forms and Settings section > Custom Fields

Create a new registration form for the new Registration Period, including any new custom fields needed.

Tip: If the new year’s form is very similar to the prior term’s form, the Pathwise support team can copy the old form into the new Reporting Term. You can then edit dates and text as needed.

See this help article for an overview of the registration form process and links to related articles.

What Participant Data Carries Over vs. What Resets Each Term

Some participant data stays the same year to year; other data must be re-entered for each new term. When a person’s new-term record is linked to a previous record (via the same ParticipantID), their Person record data (Column A) carries over automatically. If anything in Column A is changed in the current term, it will also change in all previous term records. Term record data (Column B) will be blank and must be updated for the new term.

8. Add/Edit Users (Required)

Users retain access to the system until they are explicitly removed. Previous-term users will therefore retain access until disabled.

Where to manage: Settings section > Users

• To disable a user, remove their access to all organizations in their user settings.
• To add a new user, go to Settings > Users > Add User, then assign authentication, security role, and organization access.

For more information on managing users, see this support document.

9. Training (Recommended)

An online training resource is available for on-boarding new users. It covers the following modules:

• System Orientation
• Site Calendars
• Users, Roles & Permissions
• Custom Fields
• Registration Forms
• Participant Management
• Staff & Teacher Records
• Activities & Sessions
• Participation
• Reporting
• Help & Support

Access the full training resource here.

Updated August 25, 2026 17:12