Any tips on file folder hierarchy nomenclature logic?

[scottigee]

Dear Nerds,
We're having a little issue at work here with a drive whose folder hierarchy has proven useless as we've expanded.
I'm wondering if anyone is aware of any industry standards or formally recognized logic for creating a robust file folder naming system that can withstand significant modular expansion.
Reps galore for any help.
Thankie
-S

[Shibby H22A]

Originally Posted by scottigee

Dear Nerds,
We're having a little issue at work here with a drive whose folder hierarchy has proven useless as we've expanded.
I'm wondering if anyone is aware of any industry standards or formally recognized logic for creating a robust file folder naming system that can withstand significant modular expansion.
Reps galore for any help.
Thankie
-S

do you mean like having so many subfolders in one folder?

or need a program that would name the folders?

[AEgeus]

Dealing with over a terabyte of files where I work it's a necessity to have file organization down.

I guess a couple of questions you have to answer are:


What is the nature of the data/files and how are they accessed most often? (is it date sensitive subject sensitive? who created the file sensitive? etc.)

after that what is the second most important way they are accessed?

Is the tree structure of the file relationships already have a good layout for your data? Maybe you just need to step back and take a look at what your files represent and let it show you how it should be structured.

Is searching important to you? Maybe something like Google business desktop solutions is a good idea? http://www.google.com/enterprise/

[scottigee]

Thanks AEgeus, that helps a little. I should analyze what's important to us about these files.

Shibby, to clarify, I'm looking for a logic for grouping file folders that would make sense when expanded and allow us to restrict access with standard microsoft permissions.
For example, most of the files are CAD files of various buildings in various locations. But there are three different kinds of CAD files...call them A,B and C. The questions we are asking ourselves are along the lines of
"Do we have "A" "B" and "C" folders on the root and then sub-folders for the various locations, or put the location folders on the root and have types "A" "B" and "C" within those?"
It's more complicated than that but along those lines. The trade off is that fewer folders seems more organized but it also limits the permissions control potential.

Thanks for the help guys

[AEgeus]

I didn't realize that file permissions would be important in this matter.

You will need a good balance between ease of use and ease of administering. (I'd lean a little bit more to ease of administering)

You can always create a database query interface that lets you control permissions via a log on. This would allow you to lump all your drawings into 3 dirs (or one if you feel that's easier) (this also would allow things like keywords/title/type be searchable)

without knowing in more detail of who needs to access the drawings and what groups they are in and if they need to cross access drawings I can only give you limited suggestions.

*edit*

"Do we have "A" "B" and "C" folders on the root and then sub-folders for the various locations, or put the location folders on the root and have types "A" "B" and "C" within those?"

With a searchable database/query engine you can have both available. We have a couple of differnt ones where I work. They range from a Oracle database to a simple Access database. They all have decent interfaces. the appropiate viewer prog opens it up and if any changes are done it automatically put in a new rev level and adds the new drawing. They are also accessable via a small executable or via the intranet website. If the user has broadband he/she can access via an internet website too.

[scottigee]

This sounds like a more elaborate version of something I've considered... A web interface would serve us well because it would eliminate the downside of having too many files per folder by only making those files available that the user needs to see.

I should also mention that some of the file paths are unique identifiers on db-linked drawings. Some of the file names are the same but because they have different full paths it still works. If we ended up restructuring and placing multiple files with the same name in one folder we'd be screwed. So maybe we need to revamp our file nomenclature as well.
this is getting hairy...

[AEgeus]

Well no one really understand the complexity and importance of file nameing until they have too many files to deal with.

This is all usually after the fact and someone inevitably(sp) has to redo the naming convention which takes many man hours and effectivly confuses the end user as to what files he wants.

If you do end up renaming everything think of the big picture and plan for the worst case scenario. You end up getting tons more files and have to come up with a naming scheme. Use something similar to the organism naming convention KPCOFGS (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)

What rev level?
What do your drawings drill down to? (HVAC, ELEC, PLUMB, NTWK?)
What rooms in the office? (Are they numbered/named?)
What floors? (1st, 2nd, 3rd, B[asement], S[ub]B[asement])
What building?

etc

so if a person can answer those questions your naming convention could be
MainBldg_1stFlr_NTWK_revA.DWG
Thats just a made up example. If they were building drawings the creator would have probably been organized to put the entire floor on well thought out layers instead of seperate drawings...right? (at least I would have)

Using a naming convention like this would allow infinite catagories. Even administering this would be so hard as you can do a search on all folders called HVAC on your server and then change all your permissions at the same time.