Two related checks determine what a school contact sees and can do with reports in the Portal. First, Rhythm checks which reports the school still owes. Then it checks which of those owed reports the contact may view or submit. This article explains both checks and how they work together.
What a School Still Owes
Each accreditation has a phase, and that phase lists the report types the school is expected to file. Those report types are the school’s reporting requirements. Rhythm compares the phase’s requirements with the reports the school has already submitted, then marks any required report type without a matching filed report as still owed.
Rhythm uses these rules for that comparison:
- Only reports dated on or after the phase started count. A report filed before the current phase began does not meet a requirement for that phase, even if it is the right report type.
- A requirement marked optional is never owed. Only required reporting requirements from the phase appear on a school’s owed list.
- A report's review outcome doesn't matter. After the school submits a report of the required type, that requirement is no longer owed, no matter where the report is in review.
- A new accreditation gets its owed list immediately. As soon as a school is added to a program, Rhythm works out and records the current phase’s reporting requirements, so the school shows what it owes as soon as its accreditation exists.
When Rhythm Recalculates the List
Rhythm does not recalculate a school’s owed reports continuously. It works out the list at specific times, then stores that list until the next recalculation.
- When the accreditation is first created.
- When one of the school’s reports is filed, changed, or deleted. This recalculation runs in the background, so the owed list updates shortly after the report changes, not at the exact moment of the change.
- Whenever Rhythm checks which reports a contact may currently view or submit for the school, as described below. That check also recalculates the owed list and saves the accreditation if the list changed.
If you edit the phase’s reporting requirements or move a school to a new phase, that change does not trigger a recalculation by itself. The owed list catches up the next time one of the triggers above runs.
Who May View and Submit Each Owed Report
Knowing what a school owes is only half the picture. Each reporting requirement in the phase also names which contact roles may view it and which may submit it. When a Portal contact opens their school’s reports, Rhythm checks the contact’s roles against each owed requirement’s permitted roles, then shows only the reports that contact is allowed to see or submit.
That is why two contacts at the same school can see different report lists in the Portal. One contact’s role might allow them to view or submit a requirement that another contact’s role does not. This also explains why a required report type disappears from your list after you submit it: once the required report is filed, the school no longer owes it.
Each reporting requirement can also point to a specific form for that report type. The form a contact sees depends on the report type and that requirement’s configuration.
Tip
If a report you expect to see or submit is missing from your school’s Portal list, check two possibilities. Your school may no longer owe that report, or your contact role may not have permission for that reporting requirement. Check both before you assume something is broken.
Warning
The check that decides which reports a Portal contact may view or submit for a school also refuses to return information for a contact or school that the signed-in Portal member has no relationship to. This prevents one member from learning about another contact’s or another school’s report standing through this check.
Related
Reports owed by a visit — as opposed to a school’s own accreditation — are tracked separately with their own rules; see How a Visit's Owed Reports Are Tracked. Contact-role permissions control more than reports in the Portal; see Contact-Role Permissions and Self-Service in the Portal for the fuller picture of what a contact role controls. What happens right after a report is submitted, including its confirmation email, is covered in How Report Confirmation Emails Work.