File Naming Convention

Why Naming Conventions?

Strong naming conventions will be critical for all of these best-in-class assets going forward as they will allow us to: 

Prevent duplicate file names

Aprimo DAM will flag any duplicate file names and prevent the upload of these files. An organization-wide naming convention will prevent BUs from accidentally uploading assets with the same file names or additional copies of the same image.

Consistency and Recognition

Aprimo DAM relies solely on a file’s metadata for classification and discovery. In Box, assets are stored within a folder structure. If we want to see other assets from a project, we can look at other files in the folder. However, Aprimo relies on the metadata of the file to make these connections.

The naming convention is designed to mimic this folder structure. We will be able to easily distinguish files, group them according to project, or even search for similar/related assets by searching for part ofthe naming convention.

Best Practices

Our Best Practices for file naming closely align withthose used by our Global teams.

Each file name should contain four components:

• Business Unit
• Story/Shoot Identifier
• Date 
• Sequential Number/Internal Naming

To be assembled as below:

Business Unit + Project/Story Identifier + Date + Sequential/Internal naming

BU_ID_ YYMMDD_Seq/Int

Business Unit

In the Aprimo DAM, the file name will display underneath the thumbnail in the search results view, so a Business Unit ID will allow your assets to be distinguished from assets in other BUs at a glance.

For example, a consumer from the Massachusetts field office may be looking for a photo of fall foliage, but also want to prioritize photos taken by the MA team. By starting their files with BU, they will be able to see, without additional filtering, which of the top results are from the MA team and which are from other BUs.

Additionally, BU prefixes will prevent teams accidentally duplicating asset names.

Many field offices already prefix their assets in Vault with Business Unit abbreviations. We have compiled these below for reference {See Below]. BUs which do not currently use this structure have been assigned abbreviations based off of internal or ISO-3166 standards.

For example:

• Canada becomes CAN
• Massachusetts becomes MA
• Indonesia becomes INDO

Note: Use the code for the owner of the asset, NOT the geographic location of the asset. For example, if the Ohio BU shot a picture of a flower in Kentucky, the asset should be prefixed OH, not KY.

Tracking Story/Project ID:

Your new assets MUST have an identifier.

The identifier is a string of numbers or a combination of numbers and letters which are batch assigned to uploads.

For Example:

• KenLions
• Smith0045
• FL-Panthers01
• 20189

The Global Creative Marketing teams currently assign each photo shoot, video project, design assignment, etc a tracking code upon inception. Each photo, asset, and deliverable from these projects carries this assigned code throughout its lifecycle. These codes allow our teams to track which photo shoots concern the same specific assignment, which video shoots relate to the same story, etc.

Note: This number is created internally by the creative teams. It does NOT align with any naming created by accounting, billing, or other groups which use similar nomenclature.

Your team may already follow a similar process. Or, you may use other internal naming such as names, photographers, abbreviations, etc. You can continue to use your current system. However, it should be unique to the assets and allow users to associate or search for groups of assets.

Global Team method:

If you do not currently use an internal system, you can adopt our Global Team's system. Our project managers create and then track each assignment using a combination of fiscal year and a sequential number.

For example: The fourth project created in Fiscal Year 2020 would have the FY of 20 and the number 004. So the tracking ID would become:

[Fiscal Year] + [Project Number]

[20] + [004]

20004

NOTE: Aprimo does not allow spaces in file names.

Date

Dates should be formatted in the YYMMDD format. For photos and other raw field assets, the date should represent the day the photo (or asset) was shot. For finished videos/design assets/documents, etc, the date should represent the day the asset was completed/published/made available.

For example:

A photo taken on April 8, 2020 should have its date component formatted: 200408

A video published on the same date should have its date formatted: 200408

Internal Naming/Sequential Number:

Many of us also use internal naming for our assets, often the name of a photographer, an abbreviation of topic, version of an element, or just sequential numbers.

For Example:

• LionsFinal
• Smith0045
• FL-Panthers-932

Final File Name

Separate each component of your naming convention for easy reading to build your final name. Avoid all spaces in the file name as this will create an upload error in the Aprimo DAM. Instead, to delineate between words or numbers in your name, use either an underscore ( _ ), dash (-), or capitalization.

Following the convention, a photo from a story about Green Cities shot by the New York BU on May 2, 2020 could be formatted:

NY_20092_200502_GreenCities0091

And a profile video of Jane Smith from the same project,posted on July 23, 2020 could be formatted:

NY_20092_200702_SmithProfileFinal

The convention allows flexibility for your internal business needs. But the most important thing is to BE CONSISTENT. Proper naming will help visibility and discoverability of your assets and avoid duplicates.

Special Note:

Avoid special characters in the File Name.

Special characters in the File Name are not supported by the Aprimo system and will cause your asset to upload incorrectly.

Characters to be avoided are:

* /: [ \} | # % { } ? ( ) ' , ©

Similarly, spaces in the file name will cause an error. Delete ALL spaces or replace them with a dash:

• Green Cities or Green-Cities