Tracking your period days in Oveluni: a starter guide

Recording your period days in Oveluni takes a few taps; what matters is knowing where each step is. In this guide we walk through everything in order, from turning on the women's profile and the Cycle area to adding your first period record and reading it on the Calendar and Summaries. It takes a few minutes to read from start to finish.

Before you start: the women's profile and the Cycle area

Oveluni has three profile types: Female, Male and Prefer not to say. The Cycle area and the Women's health area open in the women's profile; you'll find the details on the Women's profile page.

Tracking areas open and close one by one. If you don't want to use the Cycle area for a while, you can turn it off; your past records are not deleted, they are kept. When you turn the area back on, your earlier records are right where you left them.

This guide focuses only on recording period days. Other areas, such as medication plans, daily check-ins or doctor check-ups, open and close separately; which ones you use is entirely up to you. The app has five tabs: Today, Calendar, Records, Summaries and Profile. You open a period record from Quick add and read the result on the Calendar and Summaries.

Step by step: add your first period record

1. Check your profile. Make sure your profile type is Female and the Cycle area is on.
2. Open the Quick add menu. You'll see six record types: Add a visit, Medication intake log, New medication plan, Period days, Daily check-in and A note.
3. Choose Period days. The period record opens from this option.
4. Enter the start date. Pick the day your period started.
5. Add the end date when it ends. When the bleeding stops, you add the end date to the same period record.
6. Look at the Calendar. Check that the days you saved are marked, so you know the record went in correctly.

We explained how to find the first day of your cycle and how to count cycle length step by step in how to track your period. In short: the first day of bleeding is day 1 of your cycle; if you apply the same rule every month, the months stay comparable.

If there was light spotting before the actual bleeding, you can write it as a separate note and mark the day the bleeding started as day 1. What matters is using the same rule every month. If you're unsure about a case, you can ask your doctor.

Seeing your period days on the Calendar

The period days you saved appear in their own color on the Calendar. That way you spot the first day of each month at a glance and easily count the days between two starts. Your medication and check-up records live on the same calendar, so the whole month shows in one place. We explained how to read the Calendar month by month in reading a month at a glance with the calendar view.

If you travel, Oveluni's time zone setting helps: during travel, period days keep their calendar date. So when you move to another time zone, the date you saved doesn't shift.

Small habits for steady records

The steadier your records, the more meaningful your later summaries. A few small habits help:

• Enter the start date the day your period begins; don't leave it for later.
• Add the end date when your period ends.
• Write observations such as pain, mood or a busy week using the A note option in Quick add; we gathered what you can note in what to note when tracking your period.
• At the end of each month, take a minute to look over that month's records.

If you forget a day, that's fine; you can still add the date when you remember. Empty days stay empty, and your records won't judge you.

If you want a yardstick for your records, the general information from the UK's National Health Service (NHS) gives an idea: the time between periods averages around 28 days, and varying between 21 and 35 days is also common; a period usually lasts 2 to 7 days. These ranges are general information; the person to assess your own pattern is your doctor.

Summaries: recorded period lengths and comparison

On the Summaries tab, you pick a period filter and look at your records for that period. If you track periods, you see two things:

• Recorded period lengths: how many days the period days you saved lasted.
• Period comparison: you can compare your records by putting two equal periods side by side.

In the app's own words: "These summaries reflect your records. They do not diagnose or predict future cycles." So Oveluni doesn't calculate the date of your next period, and it makes no fertility, ovulation or pregnancy predictions. It only shows the history you recorded.

You can change the period filter to look at a shorter or longer range. In the comparison, having two periods of equal length keeps your records side by side fairly. Days you don't record stay empty; this is not a health score, just a summary of the records you keep.

If you notice something clearly different from your usual pattern, you can talk to your doctor or pharmacist about it, with the dates; interpreting it is their job, keeping the record is yours.

PDF report and privacy

Before a check-up, you can turn your records into a PDF report. You choose 7, 30 or 90 days or a custom date range, decide which categories go into the report, and preview it. "Include notes" is off by default; notes only go into the report if you turn it on. Showing the report to your doctor is much easier than trying to keep everything in your head. To prepare for the appointment, you can also look at 12 questions to ask at your gynecology appointment.

Your records are stored on this iPhone; there is no automatic cloud backup or analytics tracking. If you like, you can set an app lock with Face ID, Touch ID or a passcode. If you change phones, there are options to create a backup, restore from a file and move to a new iPhone. It is all in your control: you decide what to record, what to put in a report and what never to share.

Oveluni is coming soon to the App Store.

Sources

1. NHS: Periods (UK National Health Service)