Why This is Important

Oooh double feature! Did I just do that? I did! Two blog posts published within 15 minutes of each other!

As I stated in my last post about changing Narrative Reporting Reports data sources en masse…customers need to be using naming conventions. Even for NR connections and data source names. This is one of those areas where you don’t want people guessing what these are. This can lead to frustration, and, worst case scenario: catastrophe. Developers and Administrators both need to be able to recognize what environment, application, and cube a data source name represents.

Almost every customer I go to has a bad habit of not using naming conventions and I do my very best to course correct them. Note that an Administrator can implement a naming convention for connections and data sources at pretty much any point in time and it shouldn’t impact your Reports objects – they will centrally update behind the scenes automagically.

So yeah, you know what to do:

A Simple Recommendation

If you don’t already have a methodology for NR connection and data source naming conventions, here’s a simple one for Oracle Cloud EPM:

Connection Names

• TST_PLN/FF/FCC/PCM/ESS_env# for Test environments
• PLN/FF/FCC/PCM/ESS_env# for Prod environments

So an example would look something like TST_FCC_epm11 for a Test FCC environment. You could also put the TST prefix at the end…this is a personal preference dependent on sorted views more than anything else. And yes, you can see a sorted view of your Data Source names within Library | Data Sources in NR.

Then for the Data Source Names within each connection:

• TST_PLN/FF/FCC/PCM/ESS_Application.Cube for Test environments
• PLN/FF/FCC/PCM/ESS_Application.Cube for Prod environments

An example would look something like FCC_GLCONSOL.Consol for a Prod FCC cube or TST_FCC_GLCONSOL.Consol for the corresponding Test FCC cube.

^^ Why is the TST_ prefix duplicated? Because of the different ways the data source information is displayed to Developers and Administrators. When you’re in a Report edit view, you see the data source name displayed in the properties pane. But when you’re in Tools | Connections, you see the connection names displayed. And, as mentioned earlier, when you’re in Library | Data Sources you see the data source name displayed.

So you need to be prepared for all situations. By repeating that prefix, it alleviates confusion for Developers and Administrators quickly, no matter which screen they’re looking at.

Good luck out there!