Folks:

It's getting to the point with me that I'm beginning to lose track of my FEXes and their associated launch pages. I've tried to make the FEX names as descriptive as possible but my users keep coming up with requests for tiny variations so I end up with many FEX names that look quite similar.

As a result, in an effort to keep them separate my FEX names are getting very long.

In addition, my users keep saying to me things like "Can you run that report again that you made for me two months ago" - and of course I don't have a clue and digging around is too tedious so I tend to recreate something from scratch.

Now I'm not a total idiot and I do put

This report runs from the file &FOCFEXNAME

at the bottom of every report, so they can request reports that way - but that often doesn't help.

So I was wondering if any of you have come up with a numbering/naming scheme that keeps your reports organised in some way and the FEX and launch names relatively short. Ideally I'd like to populate the report menu screen and the header of the report with something (a number?)that is related to &FOCFEXNAME so the user can simply ask me for "Report number 10" or "Report number 10B [10C|10D]" ....

George

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

What we have, I guess, evolved over time (Not the best solution), is basically this.

Launch pages (MRE) are prefixed with lp_
Out programs are basically called ssspppp.
sss is system
pppp is the program name/code

As we have as adhoc environment where the business calls us to create/rerun quickie reports. These requestes end up as versions of the prodution programs, sowe have an extention after fex name.

Our launch pages have a parameter Extention, so as long as the full fex name is known or base fex and ext, all is OK.

We have one advantage over your env, in that the businesses requests are logged, and we always add the fex and parms to the call log, so they can be referenced.

Thanks for that. I'd appreciate hearing any other methods that people use.

We also use Lotus Notes and I've started to create a library of reports that shows the report name, what the parameters are and a snapshot of both the parameter page and a sample of the output. With Notes I can create various "views" - essentially differently sorted indices - so I hope the users will consult with this before ordering up another report that is almost a clone of an existing one.