Data growth, structure and the management of it has been the topic of numerous studies, seminars and training. One of the things that gets missed is the simple naming of files and folders. Why does it matter? Imagine looking for certain data or files created by employees months or years ago. It is always difficult to find.
You may have employees look through their own files and some will check back in their email. Other times someone will simply go through the long and painful process of searching for the information in folders on some shared storage device, Sharepoint, or in backups.
If your company had a standardized method of naming files and folders this process could be so much easier. Take into account that Microsoft Word automatically names files and many employees will just accept these names. Often this is just the first sentence or cell of the file.
Excel by default names it “book1”. Google docs calls it “untitled”. Rarely is this helpful months or years later when someone is looking for a file. Imagine if there was a policy in place to properly name files when they are first saved. What would that look like?
Setting up a method for the naming of files and folders is not difficult. There are a few things that should be considered first.
- No spaces. While Microsoft and Apple operating systems can deal with spaces and special characters in file names it is best to avoid them. Often a file is shared online, or in a way that ends up being viewed in a browser. Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Sharepoint, and others all allow you to view file names this way. Spaces might look like an underline, they may look like a space, or an underline might look like a space. If you are looking for a file in backups spaces are not helpful. It is best just to avoid spaces.
- No special characters. Avoid special characters for that same reason, and more. Stick to letters and numbers. Anyone that has written code of just about any kind has had to deal with escape characters for data that may include special characters. Months from now, long after whatever document has been created, someone is going to go searching for it. Whatever tool they are using will treat special characters differently than normal characters and numbers. If the file names ever get input into a database special characters may just be removed. If the file needs to be pulled from backups, special characters just complicate the search. Just avoid using special characters in file and folder names.
- Everyone must use it. Try not to have one naming method for accounting and one for production and one for marketing. The naming method should be specific enough to have meaning but broad enough to be used throughout an organization. Having a standard for file naming really only works if everyone uses it. This includes getting management of all levels to agree it is a good idea. While this is more of a political question than a technical one, getting outside help is an option. Having IT professionals involved will make it easier to explain the time and effort that can be saved in the future.
No one method will work for every business. Bringing in an outside consulting company to help with the process is a good idea. Remembering that this process is really being done for the future, months and years from now you will be glad you took it seriously and spent the time, money and effort to do it right.
Some companies use a system that includes the first four characters of a client’s name. Some companies will use a month and year in the file names and the initials of the original creator. For instance, an accounting company may have a balance sheet for a client named Acme that is created in November of 2015 named acme11082015bal. The key to the whole thing is that the name for both the file and the folder it is put in will be understandable months or years later, to someone that has never seen the file before.
