Filenaming schemes

Organising and protecting your information is just as important as creating it. In an organisation with lots of data, not being able to find a file is effectively the same as having the file accidentally destroyed. This is where a sensible and agreed-upon set of rules for file naming and directory structuring is vital. If a dozen people working on a project saved their files willy-nilly any place they wanted with any file name they preferred, it would be impossible for their colleagues to find the information they needed.

One important task in setting up a collaborative project is to agree on basic file naming rules. For example:

• All files for this project must be saved on the network in Q:\OUR_PROJECT
• All orders must be placed in the ORDERS subfolder. The filename must begin with "ORDER-" followed by the code name of the company the order is going to, your initials and then the date of the order in the format DDMMMYY. Since several orders could go to the same organisation on the same day, the file name must end with "NUM" and a 2-digit number indicating the number of the order to that organisation for that day. For example ORDER-STEGGLES-MJK-24FEB02-NUM03.DOC.
• All correspondence must be placed in the CORR subfolder. The filename must begin with "CORR" etc etc
• All database files must be placed in the DB subfolder etc etc
• No filename may contain spaces
• Use a dash "-" to separate segments of a file name.
• Files in progress must end with an "X" - e.g. ORDER-STEGGLES-MJK-24FEB02-NUM03X.DOC.
• Different versions of the same file should be indicated by appending "V" and a version number, e.g. ORDER-STEGGLES-MJK-24FEB02-NUM03-V7.DOC.