For the longest time Rochade only supported 32 character identifiers.  RoAccess on the other hand allowed Rochade users to have much longer names years before ASG got around to supporting long names.

If you're not a history buff, stop here.

For history buffs, here is how we beat Rochade's long names by 4 years.  What is important here, is that when clients find Rochade shortcomings, we find how to get around those problems.  Also, sometimes the Rochade database can support features that Web Access does not.  RoAccess can take advantage of ALL Rochade capabilities.

Rochade Item Names must be <=32 characters.  This has always been a severe and crippling limitation of the Rochade Repository/server and Autopilot.  However, for many, this is also a fatal limitation, stopping projects or making them run over budget and taking much longer.  Many identifiers need to be much longer to be meaningful.   Otherwise you have to make cryptic abbreviations.

RoAccess in response to its customer requests, implemented Long Identifier Support back in 1997, which is in use world-wide by the largest companies and governments in the world.  It works!

Item Identifiers can be up to 238 characters long.

Every time you view an Item Name, it will be the long identifier.  When viewing path reports, Item Displays, spreadsheets, interactive graphics, Item Lists, and on every other screen, you will see the long Identifier.  Internally, the ItemName are shortened to fit within 32 characters, but you'll never have to see them.  Tony Padden of Wells Fargo, a RoAccess Customer, created a fantastic approach to working with long names, and allowed us to implement his solution.  Why re-invent the wheel when you already have a great solution?

Example of how powerful RoAccess and Its Long Names is:

Viasoft Australia obtained and modified RoAccess to support the Long Identifiers as they are used in their EPM product.  EPM is a Windows based graphic network layout tool, and it too needed identifiers greater than 32 characters.  Rochade and Autopilot do not support this.   Also EPM has no WEB interface, and the Australian government absolutely required WEB access to it and needed Long Identifiers.  Also EPM's use of its long names is not compatible with Autopilot, either.  The ASG JSP browser could not be modified easily to handle EPM's long names, so Viasoft took RoAccess and changed its long name routines to make it access EPM's special way of storing long names.   It took an ASG engineer only about 5 days to convert RoAccess to be compatible with EPM.  Like most people, they were amazed an delighted with the results.

This is an example of how companies, even ASG,  are using RoAccess to make sure their Repository projects are a success.  We implement what they need.   Since RoAccess can be tailored, if a standard solution does not fit, change it to meet your needs, or contract with us to make a custom solution that fits your business requirements.

Each Item must have an identifier.

The Rochade imposed limitation is that an Identifier is <=32 characters.

When implementing Long Identifier support, regardless of how we  represent the Long Identifier, the real Rochade Identifier of the Item will always have to be <=32 characters

Since the Item name is <=32 characters, its real Item name cannot be the same as its Long Identifier Name, because it can't be long enough.

Although the Item name can't be the "long name", it can be used "internally".  This is much like a surrogate key in SQL.

We have implemented Long Identifier Support as simply as possible.  The simpler the implementation, the easier the support and understanding by users. 

Item Identifiers can be up to 238 characters long

You specify which ItemTypes are to have Long Identifier Support

Not all ItemTypes need to have Long Identifier Support

By pressing the Build/ReBuild button, you can enable Long Identifier support for an Itemtype.  Sufficient information is saved to allow reverting back to standard short identifier/name support.

Later, by pressing the Revert button, you can convert it back to just the way it was before you enabled Long Identifier Support.  This way no information is lost converting back and forth between Long Identifier Support.

When the Build/ReBuild button is pressed; 

The current Item Name is saved.  This original name also becomes its starting long name. 

Then the Item is given a new internal name using the standard RENAME command.  Therefore, all links pointing to it from other items are automatically updated.

A high speed cross reference table between external Long Identifiers and newly created internal identifiers is created.  This will be explained later.

The Item List Screen, which shows the Items that are of an ItemType and match any wild card filter.

The Item Display Screen:

At the top is the Item Name of the displayed Item

For each link attribute, the long name of each link pointed to is displayed

At the bottom is the Referenced-By section.  You will see the Long Identifier for each Item that has a link attribute point to this Item

Path Reports

The seed Item selection screen lists the Items displaying the Long Identifiers

The output of the Path Report lists all Items showing their Long Identifier

Spreadsheet Reports

The Item Select list, after specifying a wild card filter, show the Items by the Long Identifier

The actual Spreadsheet lists the Items by their Long Identifier.

Stored Reports: the Item List filter lists Items by Long Identifier

Adding links to link attributes

$enable_long_names=1;  This is the master on/off switch.

%long_item_types.  This array tells RoAccess which Item Types are to have Long Identifier Support, by Subject Area.  For each Subject Area you can specify ALL or just some of the ItemTypes.  This gives you very fine control.

$show_s_id=1;  This is more a user training tool.  When one is first using Long Identifier Support, you might find it comforting to know what is the internal name for each displayed Item.  This switch displays the internal (surrogate) name next to each Item long name. 

There are three places where identifiers are shown on the Item Display: 

1) The Identifier/Name for this Item.  Here, the person has his Social Security Number (U.S. Government citizen Identification), plus his office room number.  This can make searching for Items very nice. 
2) Two links from this Item to Items of type Project.  Since an Item Name can be so long, you now have the option of having it contain more information. 
3) This Item is referenced by an Item of type ORGANIZATION.  So why not add the city of this department?

Where else are Long Identifiers shown?  This is easy.  With Long Identifier Support enabled, ALL Identifiers displayed can be up to the maximum length!   This includes Item Lists, Item Filter Boxes, Spreadsheets, Path Report Outputs, Stored Reports, everywhere.  There is no magic here.  If you are creating a new Item, you can enter the new Item Name up to 238 characters.  Likewise, if you are renaming an Item, you can enter a name up to 238 characters.