Electronic Project Data Management

[ericvallejo7526]

I am looking for suggestions and ideas on electronicdata management of data.  We are a mid-sized Survey/Engineering firm and I have been trusted upon to come up with an electronic system that works for our company and I am curious how other firms organize there digital data.

The heirarchy of our current system is as follows:

1. Project Year
2. Department (ie. Land Development, Survey, Structural...etc.)
3. Next number available used as identifier for billing/accounting (ie. 001, 002, etc.)
4. Docs/Dwgs/Data

In my opinion, the problem in our current system is that data for one particular project area/location can be in multiple file folder locations; thus making it difficult to keep track of all the digital data we have as well as have the ability to search for it months or years down the line in the instance we would like to incorporate the data in a future project on the same site.

ie. a current college project will involve multiple clients requesting the following: 

1. Topographic/Boundary
2. Civil Design
3. Sructural Design
4. Construction Staking

We are most interested in incorperating a system in which the Project Location is #1 on the heirarchy as to keep all data relevant to the specific project area is in one location.  Any direction or suggestions are welcome and my thanks in advance for aiding me in this necessary task.

Thanks,

Eric Vallejo

SIT/Senior Engineering Tech.

[klugb]

THere isn't any one way that is the best, just depends on your needs. For us we had a similar argument when it came to archiving data and trying to recover it later. We even had different departments on different servers and couldn't access the other departments data, what a mess!

This is what we use now. It's a directory structure with all the folders created and empty, this way they are always the same names with every project. We copy it over and rename the first folder:

-Project number

-Departments

-Specific folders to design like "Civil 3D"

-Specific folders to Civil 3D

See image

[KirkNoonan]

I agree with Bruce. You'll have to hash out the best system for your organization, but after you do, document where and why things are supposed to go where they go and create a template for the directory hierarchy. We use a simple batch file to copy the files and directories from a central template project onto the server. If the files and directories are already in place, even the people that don't agree with your system will use it since it is easier than making up a new system.