# Naming convention — Healthcare

The naming convention with three segments a provider needs: which service line a campaign is for, which audience type it speaks to, and which clinical review cleared the creative inside it.

Everything else is the general convention, unchanged. One row per segment, fixed positions, a closed list of values with an owner, one separator and a change rule that does not break reporting history.

## How to use it

1. Copy this file, or the CSV version if you would rather work in a sheet.
2. Decide the separator first, and pick one that cannot appear inside a value.
3. Fix the positions before the values, so a name can be split by position.
4. List the allowed values for every position, and give each list an owner.
5. Put optional segments at the end, never in the middle.
6. Write one full example name for every level, and check it splits correctly.
7. Agree the change rule before anybody renames anything that is already running.

## The columns

**Level** (Text). Which object this segment belongs to: campaign, ad set, ad, creative file, or the tracking parameters that carry the service into the enquiry record.

**Position** (Integer). The position this segment holds, counted from the left. Service line and location go early, because those are the two dimensions a practice reports on and the two that must survive truncation.

**Token** (Text). The short code as it appears: sleep, physio, imaging. Spelled exactly as the practice management system spells the service, because that is what the two datasets join on.

**Meaning** (Text). What the token stands for, in the clinical system's own words rather than in marketing's. A service named one way in the book and another in the account cannot be reported together.

**Allowed values** (Text). The complete list this position may hold, copied from the practice management system. It changes when a service is added, renamed or retired, which happens more often than a quarterly review catches.

**Example** (Text). A real value written as it will appear, taken from the current service list rather than one that included a practitioner who has left.

**Required** (Text). Whether the segment must appear. Service line and audience type are required, because a campaign that does not say whether it speaks to patients or referrers cannot be judged on either.

**Separator** (Text). The character between segments, and never one that appears inside a service or location name. Practice names and suburbs both carry hyphens, which is the common collision here.

**Case rule** (Text). Lower case throughout, including service names that are capitalised on the website. One case rule is what stops the same service appearing twice in a report.

**Where it appears** (Text). Every place this has to be repeated: the campaign name, the tracking parameters, the booking form and the enquiry record, so spend by service can be joined to attended appointments.

**Maintained by** (Text). Who owns the list of values. For the service line that is the practice manager, because they are the only person who reliably knows when a service changed.

**Change rule** (Text). What happens when this has to change. A campaign that moves to another service or another audience type is a new campaign; a practice's history is thin enough already without splitting it further.

**Notes** (Text). What the next person needs: the value that identifies a person rather than a service, the location added when a second site opened, the service retired when a clinician left.

## The naming convention

| Level | Position | Token | Meaning | Allowed values | Example | Required | Separator | Case rule | Where it appears | Maintained by | Change rule | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
|   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |

## Before you commit it

- One separator is used everywhere, and it never appears inside a value.
- The service line values match the practice management system.
- The audience type position distinguishes patients from referrers.
- Every ad-level name carries the clinical review reference of its creative.
- Every level has one full example name that splits correctly.
- New creative under a new review is a new ad, never a rename.
- Retired service values are recorded rather than deleted.