I have colleagues who have 20 copies of the same document with slight variations named like this in a folder. I honestly don’t understand how they function at work.
I work in Finance at my company and we always save revised copies for Excel files instead of saving over.
But we also have strict rules on it. File name is always “xxxx_Workbook Template Name_MMDDYY.xlsx” or “_YYYY_MM.xlsx”, depending on how often it gets updated.
Older versions get moved to a subfolder. It helps us go back and find out what something was if there was a mistake or revert back if Excel done fucks up.
It never works when you need it. Like “that file was too big”, that file was on a network share, that file is outside the window of how many old changes are saved. It’s like using an undelete utility. Sometimes you get lucky.
It’s better to save every change as a dated/numbered file or use a real source control system.
Every tech noob user I see. Worse if it’s mac because 1) I cannot use it for the life of me and 2) almost every Mac user stores it in the same default downloads folder and won’t know what path it’s in unless they use the Finder tool.
I just sort by date modified on my work folder and purge stuff older than a year. Anything of value was moved to its permanent home and properly document controlled.
It’s a river of trash yes but anything of value floats to the surface.
My files are all perfectly stored but it’s impossible to enforce proper naming on your colleagues… No matter how clearly you spell it out they will always mess it up.
We have a document repository managed by corporate governance and to file documents in it they need to go through a workflow which enforces naming convention/category and establishes approval chain, version control, and review intervals. Anything that is actively used for things should be captured in this system, there’s some that aren’t of course but it’s the standard and you’re laughed at if you reference documentation outside of this system basically. We do this to comply with audit requirements but it’s also just good practice and everyone basically sees the value in it, despite the mild annoyance of dragging your document in to a webpage and filling out some fields.
That’s why I don’t care about my personal document organization too much, because anything of value is getting liberated into a controlled doc template meant for it’s specific purpose and put into the system where it lives it’s life.
It will live in a folder with:
Spreadsheet(1).xls Spreadsheet - shortcut.lnk Spreadsheet(2) - Copy.xls New Spreadsheet - DO NOT USE.xls
I have colleagues who have 20 copies of the same document with slight variations named like this in a folder. I honestly don’t understand how they function at work.
Sort by last modified
I work in Finance at my company and we always save revised copies for Excel files instead of saving over.
But we also have strict rules on it. File name is always “xxxx_Workbook Template Name_MMDDYY.xlsx” or “_YYYY_MM.xlsx”, depending on how often it gets updated.
Older versions get moved to a subfolder. It helps us go back and find out what something was if there was a mistake or revert back if Excel done fucks up.
Could just use git…
using git on a bunch of XML files saved into a binary ZIP file with a
.xlsxfilename extension is a hell whose circle we have not yet discoveredHonestly this is one I the reasons why I love Google sheets (controversial I know) as it has a built in version control system.
Excel has it too if you store it in onedrive or a sharepoint library with versioning enabled
Do people in your company know that there’s something called Windows File History?
It never works when you need it. Like “that file was too big”, that file was on a network share, that file is outside the window of how many old changes are saved. It’s like using an undelete utility. Sometimes you get lucky.
It’s better to save every change as a dated/numbered file or use a real source control system.
If there’s “Windows” or “Microsoft” in its name, you’re risking your business by relying on it
That’s just version control but worse!
Could be they don’t.
Every tech noob user I see. Worse if it’s mac because 1) I cannot use it for the life of me and 2) almost every Mac user stores it in the same default downloads folder and won’t know what path it’s in unless they use the Finder tool.
I just sort by date modified on my work folder and purge stuff older than a year. Anything of value was moved to its permanent home and properly document controlled.
It’s a river of trash yes but anything of value floats to the surface.
My files are all perfectly stored but it’s impossible to enforce proper naming on your colleagues… No matter how clearly you spell it out they will always mess it up.
We have a document repository managed by corporate governance and to file documents in it they need to go through a workflow which enforces naming convention/category and establishes approval chain, version control, and review intervals. Anything that is actively used for things should be captured in this system, there’s some that aren’t of course but it’s the standard and you’re laughed at if you reference documentation outside of this system basically. We do this to comply with audit requirements but it’s also just good practice and everyone basically sees the value in it, despite the mild annoyance of dragging your document in to a webpage and filling out some fields.
That’s why I don’t care about my personal document organization too much, because anything of value is getting liberated into a controlled doc template meant for it’s specific purpose and put into the system where it lives it’s life.
I routinely scan file shares to find the top oldest modified dates on files.