Five File Naming Strategies that Kill

Do you have trouble finding your files? When you find them, are you confused about which is most current? When you visit work folders of co-workers, do you feel like you are in alien territory?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, chances are great that neither you nor your organization are using a system for naming your files.

The methods you and your organization employ to name files and folders will have a critical impact on productivity. People and companies who use disciplined naming systems enjoy better inter-company communication, far less errors and much faster, easier document retrieval.

What do we communicate with file names?

With good file naming we communicate two main things: order and content.

Order should always be the first element in the filename because when this is successfully employed, it will force files within a folder to display in a natural sequence. So let’s call this first part of the filename the order prefix.

Order prefixes can be numerical such as CO01, CO02, or chronological prefixes such as 2004-06-24.

Beginning your filenames with one of these two strategies will pay big dividends as the documents start to accumulate because in both cases, the documents will display in a logical order when a folder is opened.

Order Prefixes in File Names

Some files already have a built-in order, such as COs (Change Orders) or RFIs (Requests for Information). Another example would be folders containing numbered invoices. In these types of folders we might see the prefix be something like PCO01-, PCO02-. When you view the list of files in Windows Explorer, they will be listed in order.

When using order prefixes, allocate the correct number of characters for the numbering scheme. Lets say you expect to have up to 99 Change Orders. Name the first one CO01, not CO1. Otherwise, your computer might sort PCO10 before PCO1.

Let’s say you have to re-issue CO04 a number of times and you want to retain the history of the changes. In that situation, call the first revision PCO04a, and the next PCO04b to keep the sorting order intact.

Chronological Prefixes

Notice that the example of chronological ordering above begins with the year, then the month and finally the day. With this simple method, whatever date you use, the files will sort chronologically with most recent at the bottom of the list.

When chronological ordering is most appropriate, we advocates the use of a six-digit date prefix: YYMMDD-. Example: March 19, 2008 would be 080319 followed by a hyphen. This saves characters and keystrokes, but is only appropriate when dates are no earlier than the year 2000.

A document dated 990203 (2/3/1999) would drop to the bottom of the list in a mini version of the once feared Y2K problem. If you are naming files with dates earlier than 2000, you will have to spend the two extra characters and name the year 1988 instead of 88 when using any of the chronological formats.

Conveying Content – Part 1

Once you have structured the prefix of the filename to force the ordering you desire, your next task is to convey a glimpse of the file’s content. This will save much time later when trying to find a particular document. Your folder structure may already contain much information. In the example below, the file

040602-PurchaseOrder.doc has a full path as follows:

C:\My Documents\Projects\Smith\Widgets\Cost\040602-PurchaseOrder.doc

This path already tells you much about the document. If your file will always remain in that folder, the above filename can be fine.

Ramifications of Sending Files

What happens if you wish to email the document to the accounting department as an attachment? In the above example, they would see this filename:

040602-PurchaseOrder.doc

They see the date and know it is a purchase order, but for what?

Would it help accounting to have more content in the filename? Would their process be easier if they knew more about the purchase order before opening it? The answer to both questions is obviously, yes.

But sending such a bland filename could actually be hazardous. It is not unique enough and could be erased if accounting then receives the same filename from a different worker. That could cost real dollars.

Another hazard: What if accounting modified your document and emailed it back to you? Would you easily know where to refile it? Would you file it properly? Would you know later which document was your original and which was the revised one? Expensive confusion looms on the horizon.

A simple remedy would be to add at least one additional piece of information in the file name. Instead of

040602-PurchaseOrder.doc

why not use:

040602-PO-Job-vendor.doc

Notice that "Purchase Order" is abbreviated to "PO". A few characters representing the job adds key information. Adding a few characters for the vendor makes understanding what the document is all about, a slam dunk. In our proposed example, there are only a few more keystrokes, but there is a world of more information.



Conveying Content – Part 2

Once we have learned to place ordering prefixes and locators in filenames, we then wish to add text which communicates content. One challenge of this is a limitation on the number of characters we can reasonably use. Practically speaking we should try to hold filenames to about 18-28 characters. If 12 characters are used for ordering, locators and hyphens, we now have 6-16 characters to convey meaning.

To do this, first, avoid placing spaces between words. Instead use capital letters at the beginning of each word and small letters for the balance of the word. Run them all together. This will save space, be reasonably legible, and can be accurately transmitted via FTP links (more on this later).

The next concept is to establish abbreviations commonly used in your office. Examples:

Let (Letter)
PO (Purchase Order)
Inv (Invoice)
Deliv (Delivery
Mod (Modification)

So a filename would look like this: 040921-FTWP-Let-LateDeliv

What Symbols and Characters can be used in File Names?

The following characters (although we do not recommend having a lot of different funky characters in your file names and strongly suggest for visual unity that the hyphen is predominately used), the following symbols can be used in file names without getting rejected by your computer:

Hyphen ( - )
Underline ( _ )
Comma ( , )
Semi-Colon ( ; )
Ampersand ( & )

And the follow characters can NOT be used in file names:

Front Slash ( \ )
Back Slash ( / )
Colon ( : )
Question Mark ( ? )
Asterisk ( * )
Quotation Mark ( “ )
Left Bracket ( [ )
Right Bracket ( ] )
Vertical Line ( | )

Also, avoid having spaces in your file names. In the event of attempting to FTP these files there will probably be an error.

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