Answers.Body: <p>This is an opinion-based question, but for a better experience for your users, I would use the "Some Chapter" version for your group name, rather than the code. In the back end, groups are all stored as numbers anyway. And using a human-readable version means that you don't have to deal with extra training or documentation to translate your codes for new users.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-07-23T02:23:01.140Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2015-07-23T02:23:01.140Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Nicholai
Body: <p>I am getting ready to move our organization to CiviCRM.  We have many values that are "codes" that show in our current system via lookup tables.</p>
  
  <p>For instance, the value in the database for a chapter might be "SC" whereas what is displayed is "Some Chapter"</p>
  
  <p>We anticipate that this would be the "Some Chapter" group in CiviCMS but that it would also be used as grouping in reports.</p>
  
  <p>So, as I move our info, is it better to retain the "SC" code, or should I convert them to "Some Chapter" as I do the export?</p>
  
Tags: <import>
Title: Best practices for "lookup" variables
ThreadText: # Best practices for "lookup" variables
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2015-07-22)
  
  I am getting ready to move our organization to CiviCRM. We have many values that are "codes" that show in our current system via lookup tables.
  
  For instance, the value in the database for a chapter might be "SC" whereas what is displayed is "Some Chapter"
  
  We anticipate that this would be the "Some Chapter" group in CiviCMS but that it would also be used as grouping in reports.
  
  So, as I move our info, is it better to retain the "SC" code, or should I convert them to "Some Chapter" as I do the export?
  
  **Tags:** import
  
  
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  ## 1 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2015-07-23. Score: 2
  
  This is an opinion-based question, but for a better experience for your users, I would use the "Some Chapter" version for your group name, rather than the code. In the back end, groups are all stored as numbers anyway. And using a human-readable version means that you don't have to deal with extra training or documentation to translate your codes for new users.
  
  
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