Introduction to Names

You should understand the section on Parsing Names before adding or editing any Name

Names are central to Openlaw, which includes many aids to fast and accurate entry of Names, to conforming Names and to searching for them. Several sections of this Manual are devoted to the subject.

You can ignore it all if you choose to - simply type Names as you want them into the Senders and Recipients fields and they will appear in that form in Item Cards and Disclosure Reports. If, however, you want access to pick-lists so that all users can use the same designation for both entering and searching for Names, then it is necessary to understand the concepts set out on these pages.

Quick Guide

The basic form of a Name in Openlaw is First Name Last Name of Organisation

Names can include Titles, Job Descriptions, multiple forenames and Aliases and Comments

Names are stored in structured tables and appear in pick-lists

Names can be added into these tables or simply typed into Item Cards

A process called parsing adds freestyle typed names into the formal tables

The key to fast and accurate data entry is the use of a pick-list of Names. Names in the Openlaw pick-lists are called Stored Names and comprise an Individual, and/or an Organisation or a concatenation of Individual and Organisation in the form First Name Last Name of Organisation.

An Individual Name might be supplemented by a Title (eg Sir) and can have a Role or Job Description (e.g. [Managing Director]). An Individual Name can be a Role on its own (e.g. just [Managing Director] without First Name or Last Name. Square brackets distinguish Job Descriptions from personal names.

The picture shows one example of a pick-list of Names in Openlaw - the user has picked a name to drop into the Senders field. A similar list appears when you make a Query involving Names.

The Names Menu is on the Control Panel Data Menu and, in a cut-down form, on the Tab View

There are three ways to add a name to the system. One is to add each component - the First and Last Names, Titles and Job Descriptions of an Individual, and the Organisation - via the Names menus and to create a Stored Name from them.

The second is to Add a new Name freestyle. The Names menus on both the Control Panel and the Tab View allow you to type in a Name and have it added immediately to the Names picklists ready for use.

The third way is to type them into the Senders or Recipients field and then to Parse the names - a process which builds Names entries automatically

Create a Stored Name by picking either an Individual or an Organisation or both. Because the components of names are held separately, they can be searched for and displayed in different ways, including by an Alias.

If you prefer simply to type Names in Item Cards then, as long as they are in the standard format described above, the system can add them automatically to the pick-lists. See the sections on the Names Tab and on Parsing Names.

Exclusive Use is required to edit or delete a Name from the pick-lists. If you are the only logged-on user, the system will take Exclusive Use automatically. There are restrictions on editing and deleting Names which are in use in any Item.

If a Stored Name is wrongly entered, the best way to change it is to create a new Stored Name in the correct format or spelling and then use Find and Replace to put the new name in place of the old.