Lock Leading Months Version Setting

Question

What does the Lock Leading Months Through setting control and what does "Completion Month" mean? Also, what changes are prevented in the locked months?

Answer

If the Lock leading Months Through field is set to blank, no months in the Version will be locked.

If set to "Completion Month", the selected month in the "Completed Values Through" setting along with all previous months in the Version will be locked. The Completed Values Through setting can be found in the Actuals Version details.

If set to a specific month, the system will prevent all changes to data in the Version in the selected month and any previous month. Locking months overrides all other Version access control. This means users who have access to import or have Full Access to a Version cannot change data in a locked month in that Version.

Changes that will be
prevented in the locked months:

Initial Balance on Standard/Cube Sheets (this does not
include the "Initial Balance" columns on Modeled Sheets)

Data imports

Manual data entry

Changes to Shared Formulas in the version.

Changing the content of an Allocations rule or Eliminations rule in any way that would change the values in the locked months in the Version.

Locking months only prevents users from making changes to the data in those months. Attempting to view or reference data in locked months is not affected by their being locked. Locked months can still be used in reports or exports with no change in behavior.

Changes that won't be
prevented:

The Workflow status of Levels

Structural elements (i.e. the Organization or Account Structures)

Values in future months even if a formula in a locked month refers to the future, unlocked month.

This feature does not include preventing changes to the Actuals data being shown in another version or any data in the budget version that is calculated based on a formula that pulls from those actuals values. If you know that going forward you will be making changes to your actuals data and you do not want data in other versions to change based on the actuals then you might consider importing your preliminary actuals values into the budget version and then locking the months. This way you can continue to make changes to your actuals and it would not affect the planning version.