Overview

This setting controls the order in which Academic Periods (also referred to as School Years, Semesters, or Terms, depending on how your institution has set up its terminology) are listed wherever users select or browse periods in the application, such as in period-selection drop-down menus and period-based lists.

It is a simple on/off configuration. It changes only the order in which periods appear in a list — it does not add, remove, hide, rename, or otherwise change any Academic Period, and it does not affect the actual data recorded within each period.

What This Setting Does

When this setting is enabled, the Academic Period selector and similar period lists display periods from the most recent to the oldest (newest period first).

When this setting is disabled (the default), the same lists display periods from the oldest to the most recent (oldest period first).

In both cases, the same periods are shown — only their order in the list changes. The setting relies on the sequence position that was assigned to each Academic Period when it was set up (its position in the institution’s academic calendar). In institutions where periods have been created and numbered in the same order as they naturally occur, enabling the setting will show the current or newest period at the top of the list, and disabling it will show the earliest period at the top.

Where It Is Used

This setting affects any part of the application that presents the standard list of Academic Periods to a user, including:

• The Academic Period selector used to switch between periods (for example, the period picker used when navigating the application or filtering data by period).
• Lists and history views that are organized period by period, such as a staff member’s assignment or workload history shown across multiple periods.
• The list of Academic Periods (school years) shown during portal session setup, i.e. wherever an initial period list is presented to a user opening a portal session.

Because the affected list is a shared, general-purpose component, this setting can influence period ordering in most places across the application where users pick or review periods from a list, not only in one specific screen.

Business Logic / Behavior

• Default behavior (setting disabled): Academic Periods are listed in ascending order — the oldest period appears first, the most recent appears last.
• When enabled: Academic Periods are listed in descending order — the most recent period appears first, the oldest appears last.
• This is a single, institution-wide toggle. It is not configured separately per screen or per user — once set, it applies consistently everywhere the standard Academic Period list is used.
• This setting only changes display order. It does not change which Academic Period is automatically selected as the current/default period when a user logs in, and it does not change which periods are made visible or active in the first place. Those behaviors are controlled by separate settings (see Section 7, Notes).
• Ordering is based on each Academic Period’s configured sequence position. This position is normally set up to match the real chronological order of periods, so in typical use, “descending” corresponds to “most recent calendar period first”. If a period’s sequence position was configured out of step with its actual calendar dates, the list will still follow the configured sequence rather than the calendar date.

K-12 Mode vs. Higher Education Mode

This setting behaves identically regardless of whether the institution is running in K-12 mode or Higher Education mode (i.e. regardless of whether “Enable Configuration for Higher Education” is turned on or off). Enabling or disabling this setting always simply reverses the order of the period list; there is no separate behavior defined per mode.

The practical difference between the two modes is in terminology and typical usage, not in the ordering logic:

• K-12 Mode: Academic Periods usually represent full school years (e.g., “2024-2025”), and most day-to-day records (grades, attendance, scheduling) are tracked per period.
• Higher Education Mode: Academic Periods usually represent Semesters or Terms (e.g., “Fall 2024”, “Spring 2025”). Academic records are often tracked at the Curriculum/Degree level and can span several periods, but the period selector list itself is ordered the same way by this setting.

Example(s)

Example 1 – K-12 institution: Lakeside Elementary School has been using the system for several years and has the following Academic Periods (school years) on file, listed in the order they were created: 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025, 2025-2026.

• With the setting disabled (default), the Academic Period selector shows: 2022-2023, 2023-2024, 2024-2025, 2025-2026 (oldest to newest). Staff need to scroll to the bottom of the list to find the current year.
• With the setting enabled, the same selector shows: 2025-2026, 2024-2025, 2023-2024, 2022-2023 (newest to oldest). The current year appears at the top, without scrolling.

Example 2 – Higher Education institution: Northfield College lists its Academic Periods by semester: Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. With the setting enabled, a member of the registrar’s staff generating a report and opening the semester selector sees Spring 2026 first, followed by Fall 2025, and so on — allowing them to quickly pick the most recent semester without searching through older ones.

When to Use

When to Enable

• The institution has accumulated many years (or semesters) of Academic Periods, and staff mostly work with the current or most recent period. Enabling the setting surfaces that period at the top of the list, saving time.
• Users have found the period selector inconvenient because they must scroll past many older periods to reach the current one.

When to Disable (default)

• The institution prefers a traditional, chronological view of Academic Periods, from earliest to latest — for example, when reviewing historical trends over time or when staff find it more natural to see periods progress in the order they occurred.
• The institution has only a few Academic Periods on file (such as a newly onboarded institution), where the display order makes little practical difference.

Notes

Related Settings

• Enable Configuration for Higher Education (“Settings > Application Settings > Higher Education Customization – Xrisi_parametropoihshs_kolegiou”): Switches the application into Higher Education mode. It does not change how this setting behaves; it only changes the terminology and typical scope of Academic Periods (see Section 4).
• Default Academic Period for School Portal (“Settings > Application Settings > School Portal Settings – SchoolPortal_Energi_Periodos”): Determines which single Academic Period is pre-selected as the active period for the School Portal. This is independent of list ordering — changing this setting does not affect which period is pre-selected by default.
• Active Academic Periods for School Portal (“Settings > Application Settings > School Portal Settings – SchoolPortal_Energes_Periodoi”): Determines which Academic Periods are made visible at all in the School Portal. A period must be enabled here to appear in Portal lists in the first place; this setting only controls the order of whichever periods are already visible.

Prerequisites

• At least one Academic Period must already be created and configured in the system, with a valid sequence position, for this setting to have a visible effect. With zero or only one period defined, changing the order produces no noticeable difference.
• No other setting needs to be changed beforehand. This setting can be toggled independently at any time, and the new order takes effect immediately in period lists once saved.