This article is for:
- Workspace Owners, or ESG Program Owners with both the ESG and Copy Manager roles
From ESG Program, you can manage multiple years' data collection for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reporting. An ESG Program's Owner can manage its reporting years from Program overview.
Add or roll forward reporting year
To begin data collection for a new reporting year, Workspace Owners can add the year to ESG Program. As a head start for the new year, you can copy — or roll forward — metrics already set up for another reporting year and select which of the metrics' details to include, such as values, assignments, and connected source files.
Step 1. Prepare for the roll forward
Before you add the new reporting year, first decide what to roll forward from the existing year, including:
- Values collected directly in metrics or through the streamlined Workiva Tasks
- Details about metric values, such as assigned workspace members or notes provided by assignees
- Any Workiva files connected as sources for values
If you choose to copy connected source files for data collection in the new year, also identify those files' linked files, such as their own source files or Processes used to automate task workflows.
Note: When you roll forward connected source files, their copies do not include any Processes. To retain Processes for the new year, contact your Workiva Customer Success Manager (CSM) so Workiva can help perform the roll forward.
To learn more, view Prepare to roll forward ESG values.
Step 2. Create the new reporting year
- From ESG Program, select Program overview from the outline.
- From the menu, select Manage reporting years.
- Verify the ESG Program doesn't already have the new year, and click Add year.
Note: You can only add years that don't yet exist in the ESG Program. To roll forward to a reporting year that already exists as a placeholder, first remove it from the ESG Program.
Step 3. Select which metric details to reuse in the new year
To help ease data collection, set up the new year with the same metrics as another reporting year:
- In New year, enter the reporting year to add, in a four-digit
YYYY
format.
- Select which of the existing reporting years to copy metrics from.
- In Copy from metrics, select which of the metrics' details to roll forward to the new year:
- Notes, to retain notes added to the metrics' values, such as for footnotes or the reporting narrative.
- Assignments and instructions, to assign the same workspace members to prepare and approve the new year's values, with the same instructions. If you select this checkbox, also choose whether to set the assignments' due dates, adjusted for the new year.
- Values entered in metrics or Workiva Tasks, to start the new year with the same data collected for values without connected source files for the existing year.
Note: To help ease year-over-year reference, ESG Program includes notes and values without connected source files as placeholders in the new year by default. To not roll these forward, clear Notes or Values entered in metrics or Workiva Tasks, respectively.
Step 4. Select whether to copy connected sources
To collect data for ESG Program metrics, assigned workspace members can prepare and approve values through either:
- Connected source files, such as a Data Collection spreadsheet, or a collaborative Document with qualitative Text values
- The streamlined Workiva Tasks, which provides only the fields required to collect or approve the specific values
Tip: From Workiva Tasks, assignees and approvers can better focus on their task-at-hand.
When you create the new reporting year, decide how to collect its values:
- To use only Workiva Tasks for the new year's data collection, clear Source files connected to values, and click Add year.
- To retain the values' connections to source files, select Source files connected to values, and choose what to roll forward from the existing source files.
Note: If you select to copy source files, you also create copies of any source files for links within those files. To help determine the number of copies to expect, generate a Document Links report for each source file.
Tip: To use Workiva Tasks for some values and retain source files for others, select Source files connected to values and then — in Include source files — clear the checkboxes of the files for the values to collect through Workiva Tasks.
If you select Source files connected to values, ESG Program creates copies of the source files for the new year. Before you add the new year, choose which details of those files to roll forward:
- In Copy from source files, select what from the original files to include in the new files:
- Input cell values, to copy any data included in the files' input cells. If you clear this checkbox, the new file includes an empty input cell.
-
Comments, outline labels, and attachments, to copy:
- All comment threads — Open and Resolved — from the Comments panels
- Any custom outline labels set up and applied to the files' outlines
- Any attachments uploaded through the files' Attachments panels
-
Incoming and outgoing connections — incoming from data sources, outgoing to destination files, or both — from the files' Connections panel
Note: If you continue to use your workspace's ESG Data Collection spreadsheet in the new year, select Incoming and outgoing connections. In the copy created by the roll forward, you can then adjust the connections' parameters as necessary for the new year.
- Select whether to save the copies in a new or existing folder:
- To create a new folder, select New folder, and enter a name for the folder, and select where to create it.
- To use another folder, select Existing folder, and select which folder to save the copies to.
- In Include source files, select which the existing year's connected source files to copy.
Note: If you clear a source file's checkbox, workspace members will collect its related metric values through Workiva Tasks for the new year.
Step 5. Prepare the new year for data collection
To set up the new reporting year:
- After you set up the new reporting year with the metrics and details to roll forward from the existing year, click Add year.
Note: Depending on the number of metrics rolled forward, it may take several minutes for the new year to appear in the ESG Program.
- When the roll forward completes, edit the new year's metrics as necessary to prepare for data collection:
- Update any related ESG content or reference attachments based on guidance for the new year.
- Configure the frequency or custom dimensions of the new year's data collection.
- Remove metrics or values that no longer require data collection for the new year.
- Adjust assignments and due dates as necessary, such as based on personnel changes or for weekends and holidays.
Tip: As you set up metrics for the new reporting year, you can send tasks to their values' assignees to start their data collection.
- To prepare to report the new year's values, also roll forward your Factbook Spreadsheet and its linked reporting outputs.
If this is your company's first roll forward in ESG Program, you can contact your Workiva CSM or implementation parter to help prepare your new reporting year, such as to:
- Add historical data for a previous reporting year in ESG Program
- Set up queries or spreadsheets that use or collect ESG Program data
- Update at least 30 metric assignments
Remove reporting year
You can remove a reporting year from an ESG Program, including all of its metric values and any in-progress data collection tasks.
Tip: To remove specific metric values — instead of all values — from a reporting year, remove the values from the metric instead.
To remove a reporting year:
- From ESG Program, select Program overview from the outline, then select Manage reporting years from the menu.
- From the reporting year, select Remove year.
- Click Remove.
Undo a roll forward
If necessary, you can roll back a new reporting year, such as to add it again with different metric or source files details rolled forward.
To undo a roll forward:
- From ESG Program, remove the new reporting year.
Note: Make sure to remove the year added through the roll forward, not another year that may contain collected values.
- If you chose to copy connected source files for the year, delete their copies from Files.
Related articles
Prepare to roll forward ESG values
Roll forward ESG Factbook and destination files
Roll forward both ESG Program and Processes to a new reporting year