What's your favourite method of Electronic Folder Filing?

[gavin.D]

Hi all, I'm new to ISO. I couldn't seem to find anything in the archive of posts. What methods do others out there like to use for filing their electronic file folders. My boss seems eager to standardise how all employees set up and maintain each project folder. I think it's a good idea but I'm hoping to hear what others out there recommend and if they include their filing method in their QMS at all. Perhaps as a procedure.

Some background to the company: small (9 staff) engineering consultancy, approximately 100 projects per year - each project has its own job folder. Jobs are grouped by year (i.e. 2017, 2016, 2015 etc.).

 

[Ninja]

I can imagine that habits vary all over the map...primarily according to "what works" for the type of business or project.

Filing by year has never made much sense to me...it requires you to remember what year you did the project in order to find it again.
Same downfall with filing by customer, region etc.

I file by customer, then by "type" (whatever type means in the circumstance), then by whatever else sets it apart from the others. But I file it via a searchable dbase so I can look for keywords and find it again easily.

Filing strategy isn't important.....FINDING IT LATER is important.
File in the manner that is most likely to be easy to find later.

 

[Eredhel]

For us part numbers and job numbers take care of everything. But it really depends on how you all do traceability. Most of my filenames have the job number in it for easy retrieval, while our CMM programs have the part number and drawing number in the filename.

 

[Coury Ferguson]

Hi all, I'm new to ISO. I couldn't seem to find anything in the archive of posts. What methods do others out there like to use for filing their electronic file folders. My boss seems eager to standardise how all employees set up and maintain each project folder. I think it's a good idea but I'm hoping to hear what others out there recommend and if they include their filing method in their QMS at all. Perhaps as a procedure.

Some background to the company: small (9 staff) engineering consultancy, approximately 100 projects per year - each project has its own job folder. Jobs are grouped by year (i.e. 2017, 2016, 2015 etc.).

Filing all applicable documents of a specific program in a specific folder is a good idea. Then you will have all of the documentation for that program. As for creating a Procedure specifically addressing this, it could be done using a work instruction, or something added to a document control procedure.

Just my opinion.

 

[QAMTY]

I do it in this way:
I create in the root a folder named Quality Management System
Under it Procedures/name of each process/pdf files.
Other folder named Formats/process name/pdf files
Other folder named Records/name of process/records
Other folder named CAPA/CA, PA, (all the info regarding Corrective and preventi
ve actions (fishbones, fillled out CAR/PAR, evidences).
Other named Improvement/ improvement projects.
Other folder named MS admin/Audits/internal and external, Training (evidence of trainings), CB meetings information, and so forth, in this last folder all the information used in the management of the system.

In each folder you define permissions for reading or change.

Hope this helps

 

[Nadaabo]

This is a really good question!
I used to file all my QMS documents in a Quality folder using the structure that is outlined above. Then I started realizing that I was isolating the quality from the company.
So We created in the company's common drive a page (PDF) where we drew the QMS flow and linked all the QMS documents to it.
When I moved to this new company, this company is very project based as well, and I noticed that the QMS was housed like I used to house it away from everything else. I found during my first audit of my new company that no one had any idea what any of the QMS documents are and worse, departments started creating their own documents

Now I'm trying to find out how to approach this. So I'm going through all the documents of the QMS to see what need to be company wide (The processes, procedures, Forms, internal audits) and what needs to be project specific (NCRs, FAIs, Product audits, customer warranty claims).
We have an item tracker (automated to-do list) that we have set up by project, so I'm playing around with it trying to make sure that if I want to pull all the info to present it, will I be able to?
Once I can answer all these questions, I'll create a procedure on how we do this and hopefully it will not be as complicated as i just made it out to be

 

[Kronos147]

I really want to learn how to make our documentation a Wiki. If the instructions call out a location, it would be linked.

Now, I put links in a lot of our internal documents and reference file folder locations as much as I can.

Some think this is suicide, as if you don't follow the instructions, it's an NCR (so leave it vauge). I don't agree.