Creating the Location Schema

Applies To: Windows Server 2003 with SP1

As noted, you must first create and maintain a location schema to allow users to search for location. It is important to think carefully about your location schema before deploying it. You want to make sure that it will be flexible enough to describe all locations where printers can be placed. This schema will be used by your entire organization, so its worth spending the time up front to design it properly.

Because location names are used by end users, the names should be simple and easy to recognize. Avoid using special names known only to facilities management. For better readability, avoid using special characters in a name, and keep names to a maximum of 32 characters to make sure that the whole name string is visible in the user interface. Names should conform to the following characteristics:

• Location names are in the form name/name/name/name/... (The slash (/) must be the dividing character.)

• A name can consist of any characters except for the slash (/).

• The number of levels to a name is limited to 256.

• The maximum length of name is 32 characters.

• The maximum length of an entire location name is 260 characters.

In particular, you should make certain that the schema is flexible enough to allow for future changes in your organization. Ideally, the schema can follow the subnet layout of your organization (assuming you have a geographical-based subnet hierarchy), because then it is possible to write scripts that will automatically populate the location field of all of your printers based on the subnet.

As an example, consider an organization with multiple locations in North America and Europe. The naming scheme for the organization might be as follows:

Note that the tree varies in depth depending on the complexity of the organization and the amount of detail available in the IP network. The naming convention for this example includes more levels than for a smaller organization located in a single city, or a single building. The full name of the design building in Buffalo, New York is NorthAmerica/NewYork/Buffalo/Design; for the design building in Paris, the full name is Europe/Paris/Design, and the smaller office in Dallas has the name as NorthAmerica/Dallas.