FRIENDLY-NAME
Friendly name. The readable label of a partner or resource, alongside its technical identifier.
Definition
A friendly name is a short, readable text label assigned to an EDI partner, a technical resource or an endpoint, alongside its formal technical identifier (GLN, DUNS, EORI, URN, URL). It serves user interfaces, operation logs and human discussions. It carries no machine-identification value and can change freely without breaking integrations.
Origin
The friendly-name practice emerged with the first VANs in the 1990s to ease the administration of hundreds of partners identified by hard-to-remember EDI codes. It is today widespread in every EDI hub, PEPPOL SMPs (Service Metadata Publisher), enterprise directories and e-invoicing portals like Chorus Pro. Not to be confused with an X.509 certificate's DisplayName — though both serve a similar function.
Example in context
| Technical identifier | Friendly name |
|---|---|
| 0088:3012345000003 | Acme Supermarkets — Paris North Warehouse |
| iso6523-actorid-upis::9956:fr12123456789 | Acme SAS (PEPPOL test) |
The PEPPOL SMP publishes both: the formal participant identifier (left) and an optional friendly name (right) to ease manual routing and operations. No software component relies on the friendly name to route a document.
Related terms
- Trading partner — the entity a friendly name typically designates.
- GLN — example of a technical identifier often paired with a friendly name.
- PEPPOL — network that uses friendly names in its SMP.