File Naming Policy

October 30, 2007

Last Revised:  May 23, 2012 4:50 PM

One of the most common actions in any business is to store documents, reports or other similar items in files. Any such storage system must include a standard policy for how any such item is named or labeled.

For instance a report called "The Daily Report For October 30, 2007 might be filed alphabetically in a file cabinet under "Daily Report" or even under "The Daily Report, or under "October 30, 2007, or possibly other labels.

The general rule should be that the system of naming or labeling an item should facilitate searching for and finding the item.

It is Vibrant Life Company Policy that files and documents should be filed exactly with a system that shows the date of the document as the first part of the "name" of that file. The date must be shown with a format that is "year, month, day" as follows:

"2007Oct30."

The year must always be first and show the four digits of the year. The month of the document must always be next, occupy three spaces, and include a "Capital letter" for the "month" as shown.

The next portion of the name must be the day of the month, taking up TWO spaces, so that the "first" day of the month would be shown as "01."

In many computer programs that create or name documents the usual method of storage is "alphabetical" and in most such systems, "numbers" come before "letters." Thus, a document named:

2007Oct01DailyReportMark

would be stored before

DailyReportMark2007Oct01

other examples would be obvious.

Some programs can handle names which include white (empty) spaces -- some programs do not. The best system would not use a rule that worked one way in one program and differently in another program.

The Vibrant Life Policy is to use names with no "space" between words.

Dreamweaver COULD follow the above system, but I have settled on a standard program for file naming for my web publishing. I create a batch of files named, for instance:

p1.htm

p2.htm

p3.htm

etc.

I use this system so that I can easily find the next available blank page to use.

If all staff members use the same system that shows the date of the item FIRST, we will have consistency for keeping track of our stored records and finding them.

You MUST use a naming procedure that is logical, and if you want to follow a procedure different from that covered in this Policy you must get my written approval. If you use a program to publish web pages you may follow either of the two system desceibed in this Policy, or seek approval for a different one.

 

 

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