If you’ve been a User, or Admin, of UCM for some time, and you are just now seeing a “Please correct following errors: Please select a Start Date” Terms Box warning message appear when you are trying to enter a New Contract, even though it’s not a required field, there is an explanation for that.
We have recently made a change to the Terms Box to help dates be missed less often. We have now defaulted the Terms Box to begin on Fixed for all new Contract Entries, and when a Term Type is selected in the Terms box, the system does require at least a Start Date to proceed.
If you are an End-User and do not know the Start Date of the Contract, you can simply use the dropdown next to Term Type, select None, and you’ll be able to progress without entering a Start Date (assuming your local Admins have not made the Start Date a required Field).
If you are an Admin, and know many of your Users will not know the Start date upon entry of a Contract, and want to set the system back to how it was pre-update, you can go to the Terms Box Preset Configuration area and change the Default Starting Term Type to be None again.
For Admins as well, please note that making the Start Date Required from this Terms Box Preset configuration screen will void the above information, and WILL require a Start Date be entered on ALL Contracts, including None Term Types. Please only set this to Mandatory if your Users will always have a Start Date to enter.