The Naming Conventions We Use (and Why)
Boring on the surface, quietly essential underneath. Here's the logic.
Naming conventions are the least glamorous thing we'll ever talk to you about, and one of the most quietly important. The way things are named, properties, pipelines, lists, workflows, is what keeps a system legible as it grows. Get it right and everything stays findable and reportable. Get it wrong and, a year in, no one can tell what "New List (2) FINAL" actually does.
Why conventions matter
A CRM is a shared space that many people use over a long time. Without agreed naming, everyone invents their own, and the system slowly turns into a junk drawer, dozens of similarly named things, no way to tell which is current, and reporting that breaks because nothing is consistent. Conventions are simply an agreement that keeps the shared space usable for everyone, including future you.
The principles behind ours
- Clarity over cleverness. A name should tell you what something is and does at a glance. Obvious beats clever every time.
- Consistency. Similar things are named in similar ways, so patterns are predictable and things sort sensibly.
- Findability. Names are built so you can search and filter to what you need instead of scrolling and guessing.
- Room to grow. Conventions account for the fact that you'll add more over time, so they don't fall apart at scale.
Where you'll see them
Conventions show up across the system, in how properties and fields are named, how pipelines and stages are labeled, how lists and workflows are titled, and how records are structured. You may not consciously notice them when they're working, that's the point. You'd only notice their absence, when nothing lines up and everything takes longer.
Please stick with them
The best gift you can give your future self is to keep following the conventions after we hand the system over. It's tempting to name a new list whatever comes to mind in the moment, but every off-pattern name chips away at the order that makes the system fast to work in. When you add something new, match the pattern that's already there. If you're ever unsure how something should be named, that consistency is worth a quick check, and it's exactly the kind of thing we're happy to help you sort out.