Organising files and emails

[gl3nnym]

Hello all

 

For some strange reason (I think I was drunk) I have offered to do a quick CPD session for staff on keeping their Desktop/Documents/Email organised (it's what they wanted). I need to fill an hour with "Keep a folder structure, archive emails, use a naming scheme".

 

Can anybody please offer any tips or best practises that would be good to show staff and bulk out a presentation?

 

Thanks in advance

gl3nnym

[Oaktech]

meaningful names, versioning with file names, using versioning within the office programs, seperating files with folders, not making things 50 folders deep, keeping names as short as practical, removing attachments from emails and saving them in work areas not in email. creating pst archives every 6/12 months, don't put things on the desktop. using the alternate views in windows explorer to show details. Searching using wildcards, file types, modified/created dates learning a bit about file extensions...

[elsiegee40]

Don't rely on things in the recycle bin/deleted items folder being there when you want it later.

 

If you need to store things by date and want to find them again, using YYYY MM DD,e.g. 2011 11 26, as a file or folder name works far better than using DD MMM YYYY, e.g. 26 Nov 2011.

 

Avoid duplication. Keep things in logical places and only keep 1 copy. A shared document should be kept in one place on the staff share and not 15 separate copies in everyone's personal file structure.

 

Photos, music and video... in our school, staff are not allowed to store pictures of the children on their home drives (Safeguarding). They have to be stored on our Media share along with and music and video files. The latter is to keep a lid on how muchstorage they use!

[gl3nnym]

Thanks for the replies guys. This gives me plenty of content to go by!!

 

Cheers :-)

[rdokoye]

You could also mention file clusters and how that ties into the consumption of hard drive space. Along with file defragging, its benefits and purpose.

[Oaktech]

I'd go along with defragging. My standard way of describing it is to use the analogy of a very busy warehouse operative who splits up pallets of stuff and shoves bits of it in the first space available, tags it so he knows what it belongs to, and puts the rest somewhere else. It doesn't matter how well he knows where everything is, it still takes longer to find all the bits and put them back together than it does to just store it all together in the first place. The penny drops pretty quick when you explain it like that. You can add block size and file clusters into that analogy by saying the warehouse has fixed bay sizes, but i've known people to glaze over at that point.

[elsiegee40]

Standard users on a school network do not have permission to defrag.

 

I think that's going beyond what is needed for OP's presentation

[Oaktech]

Standard users on a school network do not have permission to defrag.

 

I think that's going beyond what is needed for OP's presentation

 

valid.

 

Its one of those things that you ask them if they want to know for general interest. leave it till the end and those who care will stay and listen, those who don't will be off for coffee!

[gl3nnym]

Thanks for the suggestions but these guys will definitely not know or care about defrag. Also everything is stored on shared areas so their laptops don't get much file movement going on.