Publication patterns: Days of publication

As well as a frequency of publication a publication pattern also requires the specification of which days a publication will be issued. This can be done in a variety of ways and the options will always depend on the cycle length and number of issues per cycle that have been defined. A day of publication needs to be specified for each of the “issues per cycle” which means the higher the number of issues per cycle, the more publication days will need to be defined. For this reason it is usually simpler to define publication cycles with smaller issues per cycle (e.g. it is simpler to define a monthly publication as “1 per month” rather than “12 per year”)

For example, if the publication cycle length is “1 issue per month” you will need to define one day of publication per cycle, which can be specified as either

Day (1-31) → this option allows you to select the day of the month on which the publication will be issued by number. If you choose this option and then define the Day as 1 , this would mean the issue is published on the 1st of each month
Day (Mon-Sun), Week (1-4) → this option allows you to select the day of the month on which the publication will be issued by the weekday and week number. If you choose this option and then define the Day as Monday and the Week as 1, this would mean the issue is published on the 1st Monday of each month

Note that if you select an option that doesn’t exist in certain months, then no issue will be predicted for that month (specifically if you were to specify the day of publication as Day (1-31) with 31 as the Day then no issue would be published in any month with fewer than 31 days - so instead of 12 per year, there would only be 7 per year)

Days of publication options depend on what cycle length has been defined as follows:

Cycle definition	Days of publication options

Cycle definition	Days of publication options
`Time unit` = Day, `Number of days` = 1	No options (as by definition the publication happens every day)
`Time unit` = Day, `Number of days` = >1	Day: Day in cycle (number). e.g. `Time unit` = Day, `Number of days` = 3, then you could specify the publication was on day 1, day 2 or day 3 of that cycle
`Time unit` = Week, `Number of weeks` = 1	Day: Weekday in cycle (the weekday Mon-Sun on which publication happens)
`Time unit` = Week, `Number of weeks` = >1	Day / Of week: Weekday of a specific week in the cycle (e.g. “Monday of week 2”
`Time unit` = Month, `Number of months` = 1	Day (1-31): Month day (number 1-31)
`Time unit` = Month, `Number of months` = 1	Day (Mon-Sun), Week (1-4): Weekday of a specific week in the month (e.g. first Monday of the month)
`Time unit` = Month, `Number of months` = >1	Day (1-31): Month day (number 1-31) of a specific month in the cycle (e.g. 1st of 1st month)
	Day (Mon-Sun), Week (1-4): Weekday of a specific week of a specific month in the cycle (e.g. 1st Monday of 2nd Month)
`Time unit` = Year, `Number of years` = 1	Day (1-31), Month (Jan-Dec): day of a specific month of the year (e.g. 1st of January)
	Day (Mon-Sun), Week (1-52): day of a specific week of the year (e.g. 1st Monday of the year)
	Day (Mon-Sun), Week (1-4), Month (Jan-Dec): day of a specific week of a specific month of the year (e.g. 1st Monday of April)
`Time unit` = Year, `Number of years` = >1	Day (1-31), Month (Jan-Dec): day of a specific month of a specific year in the cycle (e.g. 1st of January in the second year)
	Day (Mon-Sun), Week (1-52): day of a specific week of a specific year in the cycle (e.g. 1st Monday of the second year)
	Day (Mon-Sun), Week (1-4), Month (Jan-Dec): day of a specific week of a specific month of a specific year in the cycle (e.g. 1st Monday of April in the second year)

Although there are many options here, most cases of regular publications can be handled very simply. For example for a monthly publication issued on the first of each month the publication cycle definition looks like this: