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Best Practices: File Naming Convention

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An often overlooked best practice is that for file naming conventions.

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An often overlooked best practice is that for file naming conventions, albeit not an Ivanti Service Manager Best Practice, it certainly is a best practice you should consider for your Ivanti Service Manager and Ivanti Asset Manager Projects.

Files should always be renamed with a prefix of the last modified date in YYYY-MM-DD format, for sorting purposes, and contain a meaningful name and version number.

The file name itself should be meaningful to the subject matter and topic at hand, for example if you’re working on UAT Test Scripts for Ivanti Service Manager then you could use 2020-05-19 HEAT ISM – UAT Test Scripts as the complete file name. Leading Date, Subject Mater, and Topic.

Descriptions such as “final” and “complete” should also be discouraged as 99% of the time there will be revisions.

This best practice ensures files are easily found, sorted, and clearly indicate the last modified date, version, and file contents.   

Note that the file saved date/time often changes as files are sent via email, download again, copied, or saved by mistake.

For example, Task #8043 has two attachments and without proper file naming conventions it is unclear which file is the latest for the Ivanti Service Manager UAT Test scripts:

  1. Copy of 2020-09-11 – Sample UAT Test Scripts Complete.xls
    should be
    2020-09-11 HEAT ISM – UAT Test Scripts v2
  2. 2020-09-11 – Sample UAT Test Scripts Complete.xls
    should be
    2020-09-14 HET ISM – UAT Test Scripts v3

In Summary, for file naming conventions use the format YYYY-MM-DD Subject Matter – Topic – v#.

By Freelance Ivanti Neurons for ITSM (aka Ivanti Service Manager) Consultant

Freelance Ivanti HEAT Consultant, Developer, Architect, Project Manager
26+ years, 100+ Ivanti HEAT Implementations.

Independent. Unbiased. Not Affiliated with Ivanti!

ITSM Best Practices & Latest Solutions by Freelance Ivanti Consultant and Systems Developer providing ITSM Professional Services for Ivanti Neurons, Ivanti Service Manager (formerly HEAT IT Service Management by Frontrange) and Asset Manager since 1996 in the ITxM Space (ITSM, IT Service Management, ITAM, IT Asset Management) in the UK, EU, Australia, New Zealand, ANZ, APAC, US, Canada, former Kifinti Solutions Consultant