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Object naming

Almost everything you create in OpCon Continuum has a name you choose. Those names follow one character policy across the platform, with per-object length bounds and a small number of deliberate exceptions.

Continuum previously enforced six different naming rules, which disagreed with each other: a name containing a slash was valid for a workflow and rejected for a service request, and a property called $TempFolder could be created directly but not imported. That is gone — a name is now either valid or invalid, and the answer does not depend on which screen you are on.

The character policy​

Rule
AllowedAny character you can type — letters in any script, digits, spaces, /, \, (, ), $, @, ., ,, %, &, #, ', emoji. There is no allowlist.
RejectedControl characters — the non-printing codes below a space, including tab, carriage return and newline.
RejectedA blank name, or one that starts or ends with whitespace.

That is the whole policy. A name that satisfies it and fits the length bounds below is accepted.

note

The editors trim what you type before saving, so trailing spaces are silently removed rather than reported as an error. The whitespace rule is what the API enforces for anything that submits a name directly.

Length bounds​

The character policy is uniform; the length bounds are not.

ObjectLength
Service requests, scripts1–255 characters
Properties, tags, calendars, frequencies, thresholds, resources, Vision cards, notification groups, escalation policies, workspaces, roles3–255 characters
Workflows, schedule instances1–40 characters — see below
Environments1–100 characters — see below

255 is the ceiling everywhere except workflows and environments.

Objects that keep their own rule​

Four things are deliberately not governed by the policy above, because each answers to a constraint outside Continuum's own naming.

ObjectRuleWhy
Workflows and the schedule instances inside them1–40 characters, and none of ' | ; % & < > ( ) [ ] { } , = ! \ "The 40-character ceiling is inherited from the Master Schedule, and the excluded characters carry meaning in schedule and event expressions.
Environments1–100 characters, must start with a letter or digit, and only letters, digits, _ and - after thatAn environment name is an infrastructure identifier that appears in URLs and service discovery.
Agent poolsUp to 255 characters, lowercase letters, digits and - onlySame reason — a pool name is an identifier, not a label.
JobsUp to 255 characters, and unique within the workflow ignoring caseJob names are checked when you create a version, alongside the rest of the workflow. No character policy applies.
A slash is legal in a workflow name but not everywhere downstream

Names that travel to a legacy LSAM over the relay are held to a stricter allowlist at that boundary, because the wire protocol is older than the policy. That check is deliberate and unchanged.

Editing an object whose name predates the policy​

Names created under earlier rules can contain things the current policy rejects — most commonly padding whitespace, or an interior tab. Such a name is exempt from validation as long as you do not change it. You can edit the object's other settings and save normally.

This matters more than it sounds. A name field that refuses to validate blocks the whole form, not just the name — so without the exemption you could not change a property's value, a script's content, or a service request's workspace without renaming the object first.

Renaming applies the full policy. Once you edit the name field at all, the new name is validated like any other, so a legacy name cannot be nudged — you either leave it exactly as it is or you give the object a compliant name.

The same exemption applies wherever a name arrives without being retyped: an object saved with the name it already has, on any screen, is not treated as a rename.

Renaming does not re-point references to the old name

Several things reference an object by name rather than by ID — a [[PROPERTY]] token, and the frequency names stored in a deployment. Renaming the object leaves those references pointing at a name that no longer exists. Fix them in the same change, or leave a legacy name alone.

Importing objects​

An import bundle's names are held to exactly the rule the matching editor would apply — the generic policy for properties, tags, calendars, frequencies, thresholds and resources, and the workflow rule for workflows. Import used to apply a single stricter rule to everything, which is why a property called $TempFolder could be created directly and then failed to import.

Two consequences are worth knowing before an export-and-import round trip — see Automation export and import for the bundle itself:

  • A workflow name over 40 characters no longer imports as a new workflow. Import previously accepted up to 255, so a bundle can contain a name that Workflows itself has never accepted. Overwriting a workflow that already holds such a name still works, because that is not a rename.
  • A name an overwriting bundle already matches is exempt, the same way an unchanged name is exempt in an editor. This is what lets an object with a legacy name survive its own export and re-import.

Copying an object​

Where an object can be copied — from its list page, from global search, or from its detail page — the dialog offers <original name> - Copy as the default. If that would exceed the object's length limit, the original part is shortened so the suggested name always fits; for a workflow, that means the 40-character ceiling.

The copy is a new name, so it gets the full policy. The dialog checks it as you type and shows the problem on the field, rather than letting the save fail.

Troubleshooting​

SymptomCauseWhat to do
Name cannot contain control charactersThe name contains a tab, newline or other non-printing character — usually from pasting out of a spreadsheet or a document.Retype the name, or paste into a plain-text editor first.
Name cannot be blank or start or end with whitespaceThe name is empty or padded. Reaches you only when a name is submitted without going through an editor.Trim the name.
Name must be between 3 and 255 charactersUnder the minimum for this object type. Service requests and scripts allow one character; most other objects need three.Lengthen the name.
Name must be between 1 and 40 charactersA workflow or schedule instance name over the Master Schedule ceiling.Shorten it to 40 characters.
A name field reports an error on a name you did not typeThe name was changed — even by a character you cannot see, such as deleting padding from a legacy name.Restore the name exactly, or commit to a full rename.
An existing object's name is rejected when you try to save an unrelated fieldThe name was normalized before being submitted, which reads as a rename.Reload the page and retry so the stored name is submitted unchanged.

See also​