Where to store files and documents


Where to store files and documents	.. Geoff, Feb 8/11

General
Pictures
Other files

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Tuning up your computer

General
We have a lot of information and many different places to store it. All information is stored as a file: quotes, letters, emails, letters, spreadsheets, presentations, AutoCAD drawings, pictures, and various specialized data files. It can get confusing where to put things.

Here are our options, and how to decide if, and where, to store a file.

To begin, ask a few questions:

How important is it?
This is the key question. What would happen if we lost this file? Does this file contain critical information that would hinder our furture relationship with this customer, vendor or product line if it was lost? Computers get stolen, hard disks fail, files get accidentally erased or overwritten. We have had all of these problems in the past; we will have these and other problems in the future.

Who else needs this information?
And will they be able to find it? What if your customer calls while you are on vacation? Will the customer be stranded until you get back? This is the main reason why everything should be on the computer system somewhere. Nobody wants to look for some obscure piece of paper hidden in your desk--not even you!

How long MUST we keep this information?
Is it vital that we keep it for a month? A year? Two years? Are there legal requirements that we keep this information?

How long would we LIKE to keep this information?
Will this still be valuable to us in 5 years? 10 years? How about next month?

How big is the file?
A massive Powerpoint marketing presentation takes as much space as 200 customer quotes. There is a limited amount of space available, so which is more important to keep?

Duplicate files waste server space. Please don't save more than one version of any picture or file.

Movies simply take up too much space. Don't store them on the server unless there is a compelling business reason to keep them.

AutoCAD drawings should be stored on your LOCAL server (DeServer, CaServer, EServer, or WServer) in the AutoCAD directory. These will be copied to Delta during overnight processing, and then replicated to the other branches. Remember that we only have 50 GB of bandwidth for the entire month for each branch, so if you have enormous 3D drawings that you are revising daily, we need to figure out another method of sharing and backing them up.

Pictures
Don't save every picture that you take. Only save pictures that will be useful a few months from now

Tagged pictures are compressed and stored in a database. Any picture can be tagged with a customer code, equipment serial number, workorder number or BOM (Bill of Materials) code. Thumbnails of tagged pictures are displayed whenever the customer, unit, job or BOM is displayed. This is the best way to store pictures.

Workorder pictures: Intranet > Shop > View job detail > [choose job] > Photos/Files > Add photo
Bill of Materials pictures: Intranet > Parts > BOM > [Choose BOM] > Upload picture
Equipment pictures: Intranet > Equipment > View equipment > [Choose serial] > Upload picture
Customer pictures: Customers > View customer > [choose customer]. Scroll down to "Tagged photos" and click "add photo"
Could we tag pictures with other criteria? Yes, all it takes is a bit of programming. Click "Problems & questions" to send your ideas to the programmer.

if you have photos for a specific customer. vendor, workorder, BOM or serial number, tag them and save them using these programs. Less wasted space, easy for you and others to find.

Untagged pictures are not compressed, so take up a lot of space. Please be discerning about what you keep. Select the best picture, not every shot you took.

Customer pictures Intranet > Customers > View customer, then click the "Photos" link

This opens a window in the subdirectory for this customer where you can drag photos.
Vendor pictures: Intranet > Customers > View vendor. Similar to untagged customer picture storage
Intranet > Photos - Any other pictures can be stored here. Look for existing directories that make sense rather than creating new ones.

Types of file storage:

On your own computer, My documents and your desktop are backed up to the server whenever you log on or off Windows while you are in the office. You'll have faster logon/logoff times if you delete old files are are no longer required. The documents/desktop backup is overwritten after one month, so we can usually recover deleted files for one month.
Your email Saved items folder. This gets backed up at the same time as "My documents". Clean this out occasionally. How to clean your mail program
Customer quotes: Intranet > Customers > View customer, then click the "Quotes" link

This opens a window in the subdirectory where you can drag in files and emails. These are saved in \\deserver\shared\Customer Quotes, so are backed up hourly.
Customer files: Intranet > Customers > View customer, then click the "Files" link

This opens a window in the subdirectory. You can drag files and emails here. These are backed up daily.
Vendor files: Intranet > Customers > View vendor. Similar to the customer file storage. Backed up daily.
\\deserver\shared\ has a personal directory for you. (If not, create it.) This is our most expensive storage, and should be reserved for small, critical files. Backed up continuously to the backup server in Delta, and transferred to Edmonton, Calgary and Winnipeg every night. (These offsite backups are in case of a disaster--fire, flood, earthquake). Don't save large files, pictures, movies, or unimportant items here--the branch office servers don't have a lot of extra disk space. We also pay to move the files over the WAN to each branch office.
\\deserver\AutoCAD - should be used ONLY for AutoCAD files. Save the files to your local server, and they will be replicated to Delta's main server overnight, and from there back to all the branches.
- If you have AutoCAD drawings for s specfic customer, save them using Intranet > Customers > View Customer > Files
\\deserver\AutoCAD\PowerTower - these directories have special security for our trade secrets

Make sense? If you have a question or comment, click the "Problems & questions" link below and tell me. We will update this document

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