As more and more information is shared digitally, the use of structured, consistent and understandable naming conventions for information becomes vital. The BS promotes the following naming of containers. Containers refer to a named persistent set of data within a file system or application data storage hierarchy.

The naming convention for files is broken down into the following fields:

Table 1: Summary of Naming Convention

  For example:-

 
The first part of the naming convention is the Project code. This needs to be from between two to six characters in length, in letters or numbers.  The project code should already have been established in the EIR.  All parties on the project must use the same project code and not adapt it for their own organisations.

The second part of the naming refers to the Originator of the information, explicitly the organisation producing it. This code should be between unique and between three to six characters in letters or numbers.

The next two parts relate to spatial sub-division of the project starting with Volume or System with the use of 1 or 2 characters; ZZ is applied when all volumes are referred to. Next is Levels and Locations again made up of two characters as follows:

 Table 2: Summary of Levels & Locations

Next is Type which aids recognition. Every container should contain a single type of information e.g. a drawing, location model, typical assembly or detail information. Standards codes for drawings, models and documents are shown below:

  Table 3: Summary codes for document types

The next part of the name relates to the Role explicitly what the organisation does. On larger projects there might be several different companies working on the same discipline for example architect or engineer however the second portion of the naming convention, the company designation provides differentiation. The standard codes for roles are illustrated below.

 Table 4: Codes for Roles & Discipline

The next part of the naming is Classification however this is an optional field.  The classification field helps describe the asset represented using the chosen reference dictionary for example the latest version of Uniclass. Link to classification sub-task

Next is the sequential Number which should be used when a container is one of a series not distinguished by any other of the fields, this applies most often to files. The numbering for standard coding should be exactly four integer numeric digits, used sequentially. Leading zeros should be used.

The next part of the naming convention is the Suitability code which should be one or two characters given in Table 5 below.

Table 5: Summary of codes for suitability

The final part of the naming convention is the Revision code based upon table 15.3.3. With regards the last two codes in the naming convention Suitability and Revision, if information passes through an environment that cannot track meta-data then these optional can be omitted all together.

Employers should consider developing automated file naming, suitability, naming, status and revision codes.