Step 3 Set Standards for Recipient Names

Conceivably, you can end up with thousands of recipients in the tree. It is recommended, therefore, that you set standards for recipient naming conventions. Remember that you have up to eight characters for defining the recipient name. It will benefit the implementation if you set easy-to-follow standards. It will also help in any post-implementation work that may be required (such as adding new recipients and applications to the tree).

Develop a Standard

In our example, the user has created a standard based on the organization of the company. There are two distinct structures: the head office and the branches. They have developed a standard for both:

Branch Naming Conventions

The naming standard for the branches is built in the format:

BRxxaann

where

• BR identifies the recipient as belonging to a branch.
• xx Identifies the Branch Number. The branches are known as the following numbers already, so we will continue with this standard.
  • 10 is Washington
  • 11 is Miami
  • 12 is Dallas
• aa Identifies the department within the branch. We have defined:
  • AC is Accounts
  • AD is Administration
  • SP is Special Accounts
• nn is a two-digit value identifying a section number, group or individual within the branch department.

Head Office Naming Conventions

The naming standard for the head office is built in the following format:

DVaaxsnn

where

• DV identifies the recipient as belonging to a head office division.
• aa identifies the application at division level. We have defined AC as Accounts Application
• x identifies which accounts department. We have defined:
  • P as Accounts Payable
  • R as Accounts Receivable
• s identifies which section is concerned. We have defined:
  • D as Domestic Accounts
  • O as Overseas Accounts
• nn is a two-digit value identifying a sub-section, group or individual within the particular section.

Assign the Standard

In the following example, we will assign standards to the users of our sample application. The recipient name is built according to the location of the recipient, using our sample standards:

Table 14 Sample Assignment Standards to Users

The format of the whole application in the recipient tree would look like this:

Figure 4 Sample Full Recipient Tree

Benefits of Standards

Having set these standards, a recipient’s name tells us where in our structure the recipient is placed and also provides us with other information about the recipient (for example, by looking at a recipient named BR10AD01, we can tell that this recipient is in Branch 10 (Washington) in the Administration Department).

When you come to implement future applications, you can use the same standards and assign new application ids, department codes, and so on.

Summary

Another alternative for recipient naming is the use of userids. You can use one of the supplied utilities (see Step 4) to automatically create a recipient tree using userids as recipient names. This can be a good method if most of the recipients are on the same level (such as might be the case with the data center programmers).

Normally each recipient will be a specific user. However, Control-D allows a recipient name to be shared by a group of users, such as a branch or section.

You can, of course, assign any standards that you feel are relevant for your site. Ensure that whatever standards you do set are known and followed by all members of your implementation team.

Note: You should by now have set standards for your recipient names.