You can manage the Time Periods in Allocate > TIME PERIODS SETTINGS.
Below is a sample of a scenario with Time Periods.
Time Periods allows you to have one or more sets of alternatives that will span one or more periods.
You can specify Time Periods for each scenario. You can select a scenario from the scenario drop-down:
To illustrate how to add Time Periods, below is a scenario without Time Periods:
By default, the period format is in Years, which you can change from the drop-down below:
The period step is 1 by default and can be changed:
The period step is the interval of the periods. For example, when set to 1, the period years will be 2020, 2021... and then when set to 5 will be 2020, 2025, 2030...
Click the start year and select from the drop-down:
By default, the selected is the current year.
You can select to use the discount factor. The default discount factor is 0.0001, which you can change as desired.
To add a period simply click the plus button: 
The period name is based on the format you selected - in this case, the year 2020 (current year).
After clicking the plus button, the blue bars will be displayed as shown below. Another column (2021) will then be displayed and is ready to be added:
Here we added four periods (2020-2023):
You can drag the blue bars to adjust the periods.
For example, click the small handle at the right of the blue bar, and then drag the handle until it extends to the desired column:
From above, 1. Cloud Migration (Vendor selected in separate model) can start on any period from 2020 to 2023.
To specify the duration, extend the inner blue bar:
From above, we specified that the alternative can span by two periods from 2020-2023.
You can also specify the earliest/latest period to fund the alternative by grabbing and dragging the |||. Below, the alternative 02. Cisco Routers can be funded from the year 2021 to 2023.
The Earliest, Latest, and Duration are displayed in the corresponding columns.
You can also enter from the Earliest, Latest, and Duration columns to adjust the Time Periods instead of dragging the blue bars.
Earliest is the earliest period the alternative can start.
Latest is the latest period the alternative can start.
Duration is the span the resource can be distributed.
You can also copy/paste the Earliest, Latest, and Duration columns. When pasting to the Earliest column, keep in mind the following:
1. Earliest > 0
2. Earliest <= Latest
3. Earliest + Duration < Total Periods
We recommend pasting values to the Latest column first, before pasting to the Earliest column. This is to make sure that the Earliest will be less than or equal to the Latest.
Click Expand Projects to expand the blue outline up to the latest period.
Click Contract Projects to contract the blue outline.
Click Trim Timeline to delete unused periods.
You can delete periods individually using the minus (-) button.
You can check Must for certain Periods to force the funding on certain periods.
You can specify a resource must be funded on a specific period(s) by checking the "Must for certain Periods" option. The solid bar will switch to dark blue:
You can then drag the "must" bar to the period you want to be a Must. Above, we made that 1. Cloud Migration (Vendor selected in separate model) must be funded in the years 2022-2023.
You can also specify dependencies on the Time Periods -- for example, you want to specify that alternative A must start only after B is finished (Non-concurrent), or Alternative A may start on the same period or later than alternative B (Concurrent). This can be done in Resource Allocation > Dependencies page.
