Standardized File Structures

My experience. Take an over view of your structure, not matter how chaotic,

When I managed, I actually had to separate and started over. (reason that would be rather wordy). Then I incorporated the history as I needed.....very long hours.

At times it better for evolution than revolution, but at times not.

Look at how a new system it would effect everyday operations, as well as accessing the archives. and begin from there. Its going to be unnerving to implement a new systems will it still is going on but come up with a outline of a system, and facilitate it with the people involved with using the system for feedback.

It not going to be easy, and your days are going to be long.

I might be able to offer ideas if I knew which industry you were in.

I have experience in engineering data retrieval systems, and the building there of, however over the years I have found they all tend to be slightly industry specific.

have a great day.

Aeronautics. I've been playing around with setting them up:

Program

....Interface

....Component A

....Component B

....Documentation

......Meeting Minuets

......Reports

......Stress

Etc etc etc. I suspect this will be argued with by the leads frankly. I wish I knew if something like this was covered in the new standards they put out a couple years ago but I can't get a sign off on purchasing the new standard yet (Some folks like the old expired one because using it is free).

Perhaps a file system by job number with a digital description of each job on some sort of spread sheet.

I set one up for a utility that way, with sub groups for street lighting, underground, sub stations.

best to keep all data regarding a single job under one number, easier to find it later.

good advice, I has set one up simualiar with Serial Numbers and quotes.

Had Hyperlinks to these files, good until we upgrated our land. And the link was lost.

I try to avoid that sort of thing in a file system, just for that reason.

found that out

Well,

Completed work is captured. The information I'm trying to get back under control is something best described as work in progress. Some of that includes old systems we are no longer working on but want to store for later reference with minimal fuss, other work is systems currently in process.

So far, no one is very concerned about capturing what each document is. The issue is putting like items together in a way everyone will be reasonably happy with and continue to use effectivly.

I have some pretty massive databases documenting customer documentation, drawings and reports that are completed for all the various systems. Our contract people are complaining about not being able to figure out how to find the drawing they were assigned to without having to use the 'windurs' search functions.

We tried giving them excel sheets to fill in data on but they didn't excel at using them and create new ones when they can't remember what they did with the last one.

Of course... after I build it, document it and organize legacy data... I have to figure out how to enforce it's use without resorting to whips and chairs or sicking Del on them.

I'm sure he's scarrier than me. I am, after all, just a little (scape) goat.

Enforcement is easy, build a simple front end that everyone has to use to document things. The only way to access the data is via the front end document generator, which will feed a simple database for locating things later on.

Excellent idea. As long as it costs the company exactly zero dollars.

That's my budget...

Mini Goat

build the interface in VB

All I can say is GOOD LUCK. We tried to get our company to use a simple standard of file naming and storage. But even though we thought it was simple apparently it wasn't straight forward enough for some of our employees. Its sometimes a matter of opinion as to what files should be stored in what areas.

Our biggest head ache is the problem of having the exact same info in 2 or more formats due to the fact that each entity we deal with (client, government, contractor, etc.) wants the info in a format that they can use. So we have Doc, PDF, ACAD, etc. files all containing the exact same info. I suggested we not keep the copies of the originals in any format but the original format so you don't accidentally have 2 different versions of the supposed same info floating around. But the powers to be said it was to much trouble to have to open the original and temporally save the document in the other formats every time you needed to send another format to another entity. Of course these same powers to be are the ones that Bitch when the client has a different version than the contractor due to the fact someone was to lazy to open the original file and send an accurate copy to the contractor & they just sent the PDF that was stored under the job #.

About the only thing we did do successfully is to get the files stored under the job #s & even that doesn't always work since some of our jobs have extensions on them. (I.E 09078, 09078-1 thru 09078-14) due to the fact that some jobs get redone over and over & over again or it was a big job with lots of smaller parts.

And then we also have the problem that one particular utility in the area won't allow us to include any sort of file info on their documents, not even in tiny little text in the bottom corner of the document. So when they send something back to us for corrections trying to find that job, especially if the jobs been sitting on their desk for a year or so, is a ROYAL PIA.

I wish you the best of luck on implementing & getting everyone to follow any standard let alone a NEW STANDARD.

We must work for the same company Scotch.

Back when I was a lowly intern here, I noticed all the drawing change notices were stored in a drawer where they could be taken out at any time by any person for any reason. I didn't think this was a very wise thing to do so I asked my boss if we could possibly use the brand spanking new scanner copier they had bought to save them as electronic files with the drawings. This would save paper as people would stop printing copies all the time and save me hassle in the long run because purchasing would stop asking me for electronic copies. Green and efficent.

I was told no.

Thankfully I decided to ignore my boss and it paid off, once he saw the value of it over the time it took me to do this he got on board. I had to ignore his next directive about not correcting old filing systems because some senior staff memeber might still be using it etc etc etc...

The up side is I knew my boss well enough to know as long as I could prove I was right he'd get over me doing what he told me not to do. The mentality of the company has not changed but he's gone now so my job is harder.

Management around here has changed compleatly, they embrase change (sometimes regardless of it's effectivness) but the employees are so used to a static environment they are resisting the new management style.

As for writing a VB code, excellent idea, if I'd taken VB more recently than high school or we had someone here qualified to write code. Our IT guy is new and still in school himself. He's still working on figuring out why some of my equipment won't talk to some of my other equipment.

We'd have to hire someone. It's not in the budget.

Perfect, IT guy still in school, have a talk to him, I would bet he is hoping to impress and would probably do some extra programing after hours to build an interface.

Too bad you have no budget, I could fix your system in no time, and sell the ideas to those at the top. This sort of this is really very simple, but then again I have done it before.

best of luck and have a great day

If it was up to me, I'd hire you in a heartbeat.

But then, I've been lurking on CR4 longer than I've been a member so I'm familiar with your thought process and can see you know what you are talking about.

Our IT guy might want to impress me but I'm not sure I'd be as impressed as he'd like. Regardless of my own skills, I know when someone knows their stuff and when they are bluffing. So far he's bluffing. It's more due to lack of experience than intelegence and skill but he's got some way to go before I'd approach him on it.

I did decide to have a brain storming session with the leads. That way they feel involoved and most of them will be reasonably happy with the choices made. Hopefully, it will encourage them to take responsibility for their team's work and I'll stop finding military system information that is supposed to be secured floating around in the main engineering drive where people without clearence can access it again.

Thans for all your help. I wish the military would have written a spec on this. They do everything else...

Thank, I appreciate it.

You are right someone somewhere in the military complex must have written a spec for the file systems, however like most military specs only the person who wrote it will truly understand what was intended. Some time I swear those guys get paid by the word, with a bonus for complexity.

Involving the leads is always a good idea, and if it works out, they will think they came up with the idea, So much easier to get a project to work when you can get them to think that way. (not that I would do that 9-))

best of luck with this.

I solved the 'job revised' problem by adding an (R) to the end of the original job number to indicate the job had been revised in some way, followed by a subset of job numbers that represent the revisions, and associated documents.

I'm not going to talk about computerized but files in general.

First create a taxonomy or hierarchy.

Create a process flow for the folders and proposals process.

Standardize the contents of each per the taxonomy or hierarchy.

Ineach folder Should be a document of the Folders standard contents layout etc.

This can be done in online files too with subfolders.

FOr our internal paperwork we established a flow chart for each process, then stapled that to the front of each file. As people completed work on the file, they colored in with highlighter the step that they completed.

In an online system you would just have nested subfolders.

The real trick is to create a nomenclature systems that is helpful and descriptive ofboth the item (Ie proposal X,) and also makes it's status obvious PxyzER .1 (proposal xyz engineering revision 2.1;Mktg comments could be a suffix too.

The idea of a well thought out suffix or infix system is vastly under used in most modern systems. Apparently computer power is cheap.

milo

As

We did that recently, created a new folder for each order, sub-folders for design, QA etc. The specification was buried a few folders in & had a longish file name. Then we found that some folks with older software couldn't open the files because the directory string plus filename exceeded a 250 character limit.

The key to any file system is the KISS principal.

When applied correctly older versions of software are not an issue, or that particular problem is designed out in the first place. Simple is always better and then there is the rule; Form follows Function, combine the two concepts and it is hard to go wrong.