Report date

Report date is the date information was reported to an organization or filed in a specified system. Its exact meaning depends on the source: receipt of an initial report, creation of a formal report, and submission to a reporting program are different milestones. It does not automatically identify when the underlying event happened.

Read the field definition

San Francisco's police-incident dictionary defines its Report Datetime as when the report was filed and distinguishes it from Incident Datetime. That is a useful local example of separate event and reporting fields. Other sources may use different names or milestones. DataSF incident-report dictionary.

Before reading a chart as an activity trend, check which date it groups. Reports filed during a month can include events from earlier months. The chart may be accurately describing reporting activity while answering a different question from “what happened this month?”

Example

Hypothetical: A property incident occurs on August 29 and is reported on September 3. The report is approved and published later in September.

A count by report date includes it in September. A count by occurrence date includes it in August, assuming the occurrence date is known and that is the source's assigned date. Neither grouping is inherently wrong. The title and methodology must tell readers which one they are seeing.

Common confusion

Report date is not publication date. Information can be filed internally before it is released publicly. A website's upload date should not replace the filing date when calculating reporting patterns.

The date on a downloaded report may also refer to when that copy was generated. Check the field label rather than assuming the most prominent date is the original reporting date.

A supplemental report can add information later. Whether a dataset retains the original report date, records a separate supplement date, or updates another field depends on its design. One date should not be made to stand for all versions of the record.

Understanding a rise in reports

A concentration of report dates can reflect a concentration of events, later reporting, or batch entry of reports. The dates alone do not establish which explanation applies. A batch public release can change when records become visible without changing their recorded report dates.

For a fair comparison, keep the same definition, system, period boundaries, and time zone. If a source changes from filing date to occurrence date, the resulting series needs an explicit break or a documented recalculation. Preserve the original field meaning when summarizing the data so readers can distinguish reported activity from activity occurring in the period.

Related terms

• Occurrence date
• Publication date
• Reporting lag
• Incident report

Sources

• San Francisco Police Department/DataSF: Incident Report dataset explainer, field definitions (revised March 2023) — Defines report filing separately from incident occurrence; the distinction is local to the documented dataset.