Inability to replicate previous reports
When creating a new chart, you probably should not 'harvest' data from previous charts created by someone else. Unless it was explicitly documented, it is likely not possible to know what they counted, included, or excluded. When performing data calculations, it can be difficult to match someone else's summary data.
A better practice might be to start over using raw data from that time period and calculate all of the values yourself so that you can be sure that all reported data points have been obtained in the same way.
Differing ways of extracting data
Additionally, most manuscript handling systems store data relating to the submissions, editors, and reviewers in a number of different data tables. When extracting your data, you will usually need to pull data from multiple tables. Depending on the manuscript handling system that you are using, it may not be obvious to you that that is what you are doing. How you select and connect your data tables can produce different outcomes. This can potentially confound your results and may show false trends.
Imagine your database as an old fashioned telephone switchboard. You can see how making the wrong connection will give you the wrong result! If you link your manuscript data table to the reviewer data table with the wrong connection, you might be told that the manuscript doesn't exist because it does not have any reviewers associated with it because it did not go through peer review.
It may well be the case that someone at your journal has been inadvertently counting data incorrectly for years. That is one of the reasons that we created Origin Reports so that everyone on your team can produce consistent, accurate charts, year after year, regardless who is generating the charts.
If you have questions because your results from Origin Reports do not match the historical data for your journal, please contact us through the chat Send a Message feature. We are happy to work through your data with you.