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Naming Conventions

  • (Optional) Customer: this one is optional. On our shared servers, it is necessary. On servers of customers who have several business units, it should also be added. In the example below, it is VTIL-.
  • Note: This should be 3-4 characters, plus "-"
  • Entity Grouping: this is somewhat abstract. It is not exactly one entity, but more how you'd like to group the connections. If you connect a PIM system to an eCommerce system, you'd probably group all 'products' together, even though the actual entities might be 'attributes', 'categories', 'stock', etc. In the example below, this is PR.
  • Note: this should be 2-4 characters
  • Process Number: for the specific process you'd like to group the connection into, you give it an unique identifier which is the Entity Grouping + number. So, let's say you connect a PIM system and ERP system to an eCommerce system. And you have a stock-connection from the ERP to the eCommerce system. It would be VTIL-PR6, in which PR means the product entity grouping, 6 stands for the stock entity.
  • Note: this should be 1-2 numbers
  • (Optional) Process Part: many processes have more than just one 'Incoming', 'Route', 'Outgoing'. Let's say for example to calculate stock, you first need to call an endpoint to get all 'active sales orders' into a storage in Alumio. That incoming is a part of the "Stock Process", but is not directly connected to the 'main' Route. You can give this 'separate' Incoming a 'letter'. So that would be "VTIL-PR6B - Business Central Active Sales Orders to Storage"
  • Note: this should be one letter
  • Explanation of what it does: after the 'main identifier', you should add what it does. Generally, you'd want to add the source-system, receiving-system, entity and its actual action.
  • Note: abbreviate the systems (Business Central \= BC / Magento \= Mage)
  • Note: Should not be more than +/- 7 words

For the example in which we send stock from Business Central to Magento, we would use these names:

  • Incoming: VTIL-PR6A - Get BC Stock
  • Scheduler: VTIL-PR6A - Incoming
  • Route: VTIL-PR6A - BC Stock to Magento
  • Scheduler: VTIL-PR6A - Outgoing
  • Outgoing: VTIL-PR6A - BC Stock to Magento
  • Entity Transformer: VTIL-PR6A - Main
    • Entity Transformer: VTIL-PR6A - Main - Map to Magento
    • Entity Transformer: VTIL-PR6A - Main - Check Product Existence
    • Entity Transformer: VTIL-PR6A - Main - Set Product Availability
  • Entity Transformer: VTIL-PR6A - Send to Magento

And the Incoming which gets all active sales orders:

  • Incoming: VTIL-PR6B - Get BC Active Sales Orders to Storage
  • Storage: VTIL-PR6B - Active Sales Orders per Product

Entity Transformers

To prevent very long names, do not add the "parent" (Incoming/Route/Outgoing) name to the transformer, only the primary identifier.

When you have large chains of Entity Transformers and you need to nest them, it is best-practice to show the nesting within the naming scheme.

The 'Main Transformer' is often used, but please abbreviate that to 'Main'. So, for example VTIL-PR6A - Main - Map to Magento

Or, let's say you have a chain which sends an email, do it like VTIL-PR6A - Email - Map to Mailjet.

It will happen that you'll reuse Entity Transformers in different places, and then the name will not match up within the Outgoing/Route. You don't need to care about this.