Why should functional names, rather than employee names, be used for authors?

It is recommended that you define authors by function or role (for example, Payroll, Benefits Administration, and so on) instead of by employee name, because copying existing reports from one author to another is difficult.

Example of non-preferred method

John Smith works as a Benefits Specialist in the HR department and creates HR Writer reports for employee benefits data under the author of JOHN. When John is promoted to another position, Sue Stewart takes over as Benefits Specialist and is set up with an author name of SUE. There is no easy method to copy the reports created under JOHN to the new author code of SUE. Sue would need to recreate them under her author code since she needs the same reports.

Example of preferred method

John Smith works as a Benefits Specialist in the HR department and creates HR Writer reports for employee benefits data under the author of BENEFITS. When John is promoted to another position, Sue Stewart takes over as Benefits Specialist and uses the same BENEFITS author to access the reports created by John, as well as to create any new reports on employee benefits.