Best Practices for Naming Elements in Tulip
  • 30 Sep 2022
  • 4 Minutes to read
  • Contributors

Best Practices for Naming Elements in Tulip


Purpose

Review our best practices for naming custom elements in Tulip as a starting point for your own apps and naming conventions.

All custom named elements, e.g. Variables, Steps, Records, etc., in Tulip should be named in a way that makes them human readable, unambiguous, and understandable to facilitate usability of apps during their life cycle.

It is recommended to adopt the following general naming conventions for all elements:

  • Descriptive name
  • Words written out in full, no abbreviations
  • First letter of each word in upper case, subsequent letters in lower case
  • Individual words separated by a space
Example Issue Better Example
Done Non-descriptive Operation Finished
operatorName Lowercase and no space Operator Name

The sections below outline some more detailed guidelines for specific elements.


Variables

Variable names must be unique with an App, however the same names can be reused within the Tulip platform.

  • Variable type not included in name
  • Unit abbreviations written in parenthesis next to name of numeric variables
Example Issue Better Example
Total wgt Abbreviation and units.For regulated industries, see comment below. Total Weight (g)
fltTemperatureF Type in name, no space and wrong unitFor regulated industries, see next subsection Temperature (°F)

Regulated industries

It is recommended to store a value and its unit of measure in two separate Variables/Table Record Fields, e.g. “Total Weight” and “Total Weight_UOM”. See GxP App Building Best Practices for more information.

Example Issue Better Example
Temperature (°F) Only one variable used for value and unit of measure Temperature Temperature_UOM

Variables used to filter Tables

Variables used to filter a table with respect to a specific column should be named with the prefix ‘Filter’. This improves the usability of those variables during app building. This is recommended for variables solely used for filtering. General purpose variables in Apps do not need a prefix.

Example Issue Better Example
Status Filter Suffix without Filter_Status
IPCtimestamp Filter Suffix vs. prefix
Lowercase and no space Filter_IPC Timestamp

Variables for key indicators

For Apps with key indicators, e.g. CPPs/CQAs (Critical Process Parameters / Critical Process Attributes) or KPIs, add a prefix to the variables’ names to improve the readability of the variables.

Example Issue Better Example
CPP Temperature Prefix not clearly separated from variable name CPP_Temperature (°C)
AssayB_CQA Use as suffix vs. prefix CQA_Assay B
Availability Missing prefix for key indicator KPI_Availability

Tables

Tables names should adapt the same naming convention used for Variables and be grouped with a prefix. Tables should be grouped against general purpose, e.g. multiple/all use cases, or specific use cases. It is recommended to use ‘

##’ for general purpose grouping and not to use ‘*’. The ‘*’ is used by Tulip to mark tables originating from Tulip library Apps.

Example Issue Better Example
Printed lables_table Use of suffix #Printed Labels
*Printed_labels Use of ‘*’ prefix #Printed Labels

Triggers

It is not recommended to use the default “unnamed trigger” name. Instead, the name of a trigger should describe its functionality in a few words.

Example Issue Better Name
Unnamed Trigger Default name Increment defect counter
Check status Too little context Check order delivery status

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