Working with Data Models › Naming Standards

Naming Standards

To share and reuse model objects within your organization, it is important to develop naming standards so that everyone uses names correctly and consistently. In the previous versions of erwin DM, you accessed Naming Standards Editor without opening erwin DM. Naming Standards Editor, which is renamed as NSM Option Editor, is now an erwin object and is accessed from the Model Explorer. Now you open erwin DM to open NSM Option Editor. Use NSM Options Editor to create naming standards and develop a glossary of words and abbreviations.

You can create multiple NSM Option objects and apply one of them to a model. Each NSM Option object includes the naming standards you define for logical and physical model objects, and the word glossary, which includes glossary words, their abbreviations and alternate abbreviations. A logical or physical model object name comprises prime, modifier, or class. Specify the components and the order in which they are to be presented to define naming standards for entities, tables, attributes, columns, and domains.

You can delete an NSM Option object that you do not use any longer. Similarly, you can delete glossary words. When you delete a glossary word, the corresponding abbreviation and alternate abbreviation are also deleted.

If you do not use naming standards, you may have modeling design problems that produce errors when you run queries to extract sets of data.

For better results, you can use the following options provided as tabs in the Naming Standards editor:

Logical, Physical, Glossary, Definition, Notes, Extended Notes