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T_Goofy
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Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 4

Sorting the File Mess

01/27/2020 2:10 PM

Hi everyone,

I am new here but hope it's the right place for my kind of rather general question: we recently completed a project (10 people working together in different time-zones). Reviewing our activities for continuous improvement, I noted that we had created a total mess file-wise on the shared folder: hundreds of files with names like <sometext>_0.8, <sometext>_0.9, <projectname>_TS-20190512, and so on.

We had some problems finding the right files at the right moment - I remember conversations like "do you still have the design with <some feature>?" Answer: "it must be in one of the older files named <sometext> or so done by <someguy>... He is asleep right now, but I will try to find it after lunch." ... followed by 30min frantic opening and closing of folders and files.

So here's my question: am I the only one with that problem? If not, does anyone have a best practice or tool that allows to find content easily in a shared folder? In an agile work environment, it is quite unlikely that we will have a very well organized file structure, so maybe someone has an idea how to quickly inspect a large number of CAD/Layout/etc. files for content, some search tool or similar...?

Thanks in advance, I appreciate your feedback!
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phoenix911
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#1

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/28/2020 8:13 AM

You should have had a file management plan prior.

discussions, meeting notes in one file. As far as CAD files, you also need a cross reference master file, that contain s not only has the name, but also nots or comments of that file.

What your asking is a wish, there maybe, but I doubt it.

chock it up to experience.

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T_Goofy
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Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 4
#2
In reply to #1

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/28/2020 12:48 PM

Thanks for the quick answer! A file management plan sounds reasonable - I ran a google search on that, sounds really valuable but also quite an effort... there's no free lunch I suppose ;-).

I could imagine that with parallel ideation and prototyping we would still run into similar issues, don't you think? You cannot track and sort every sketch/artifact someone creates...
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phoenix911
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#3
In reply to #2

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/28/2020 1:21 PM

No you can’t, especially post project.

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T_Goofy
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#4
In reply to #3

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/28/2020 7:17 PM

I wasn't looking for post-project file sorting, actually. I was looking for a way to allow everyone in a next project to prototype/ideate the way they are most comfortable with, while reducing the frsutration and time spent for 'searching the right document'...
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Rixter
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#5

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/28/2020 9:43 PM

I don't know if this will help you.

I am running Windows 7 on my laptop. Click the windows icon in the bottom left corner:

There will be a text box "search programs and files". Type the content you are searching for in quotes, e.g. "<sometext>", and it will list files and the content.

Other versions of Windows should have something similar. Not sure about Apple.

https://www.howtogeek.com/99406/how-to-search-for-text-inside-of-any-file-using-windows-search/

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Windows-7-Search-File-Contents

https://www.groovypost.com/howto/search-through-file-contents-windows-10/

And of course, it's easy in Linux / Unix, the infamous "grep".

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/grep-command-in-unixlinux/
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phoenix911
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#6
In reply to #5

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/29/2020 7:41 AM

On a tangent, I’m disappointed that MS recently stopped supporting Windows 7...

one of the most stable platforms MS had ever launched.

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Rixter
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#9
In reply to #6

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/30/2020 7:24 PM

For a long time, my Win 7 laptop has tried to install updates and then backs them out again. I tried searching the internet for why this is and so far have been unsuccessful. So I don't think I have had any support for a couple of years.
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T_Goofy
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#7
In reply to #5

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/29/2020 3:18 PM

Thanks for the hint. For office type documents, that would work. However, we frequently need to search non-office files, for example, design ideas realized in a CAD drawing... but the links were pretty interesting: I did not know that you could use "content:" in the windows file explorer search :-).
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SolarEagle
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#8
In reply to #7

Re: Sorting the File Mess

01/29/2020 10:32 PM

I don't know why you wouldn't just save all the files in pdf format, that would make them easily searchable...

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phoenix911 (3); Rixter (2); SolarEagle (1); T_Goofy (3)

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