File Folder Structure

[Anonymous]

Hi there everyone

I wanted to know if somebody in this forum could help me with a few examples on file structures. I am organizing for better production of the projects. Can somebody give me some examples on structures made in your firms.

I work more with Electrical Design!

[pkolarik · Accepted solution]

We "rearranged" our project folder structure late last year. I'm not going to give you an example of our current one because, honestly, it sucks.. lol. However, I will tell you this:  "Less is more".

We went from a long-standing (decades-long) structure of about 4 folders total per project, to what can only be described as an overly-complex system of about 50 folders per project! (keep in mind, this is "recommended starting structure"... we are a multi-discipline firm, and the creators of this folder structure attempted to incorporate every... single... thing.... we do into this one structure each in their own folders).

What this has led to in a very short amount of time is probably about 30% of all the files we typically place in a project folder being scattered all over the place because the folder structure is so complex and spread out that most of the people in our office no longer know where things are supposed to go.

Of those starting 50 folders, I typically will delete about half of them immediately after creating the project folder. That still leaves a project with over 20 folders for people to have to wade through to find things. It's resulted in immense amounts of grumbling, to the point that people are doing their own things more and more rather than use the recommended structure.

So, there's a fine line between reorganizing your folder structure and making it so difficult to utilize that your organization will actually get worse due to people not using it.

Less is more.

[JasonArtley]

I absolutely agree with "Less is More". I think logic should prevail, and adding more folders just makes it worse. 

We changed our structure to client based and it works well. CamelCase and underscores only!

X:/ClientName 

X:/ClientName/ClientBaseInfo (where any reusable data would go for any project. Client logos, titleblocks, details, etc)

X:/ClientName/123456_ProjectName 

I'm not sure how it would work in an electrical firm for the rest. I'd at least suggest folders for preliminary design, final design, and PDFs.

[Anonymous]

Hi there

Do you think that a folder name FINAL shall be a good practice?

[JasonArtley]

"Final" is where the completed, signed, final drawings would go. It really wouldn't be used/created until that stage is reached. If you've ever had to go into an old project and struggled to  figure out which one was the latest/final drawing, then it might make sense. 

[Mistress0fTheDorkness]

LOL, been seeing this floating around recently... 

[JasonArtley]

That is also an accurate depiction of most civil engineering firms I've worked at as well. One engineer, who thankfully no longer works here,  was famous for making Steve.dwg, followed by Steve2.dwg and Steve3.dwg.

Steve: "Can you put the new sidewalk layout in the drawing? Just copy it from the Steve drawing." 

Me: "Which one?"

Steve: "What do you mean which one, the Steve drawing"

Me: "You have multiple Steve drawings"

Steve: "Use the latest one"

Me: *Looks at timestamps, displays international symbol for "you're number one"*

[pkolarik]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi there

Do you think that a folder name FINAL shall be a good practice?

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 That depends... "Final" what? If it's "Final" cad files, I have to ask:  Do you really keep duplicate cad files? (we have one set of cad files for each project, period. Using pdf's for snapshots at different stages as needed)

Our "base" folder structure starts out like this:

X:\Client\Project\ then these four folders:  Cadd, Documents, PDFs, and Photos.

That part I actually like. It's simple and clear. However, it's once you get past those four folders that our structure goes nuts and gets far too complex to be of any good. (each of THOSE folders has anywhere from 4-10 folders under it. Each of THOSE folders can have anywhere from 1 to 6 more folders under them. And then even a few of THOSE folders has a subfolder or two under it...)

[Anonymous]

I am making a project life cycle structure for better history on each
project. On that structure i wanted to maintain with a
close out folder. That phase of the project will have a set on plans on
dwg and pdf clean an all documents related to that phase.

--
Pablo Lleras
Design/Cad Coordinator
AZ Engineering


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[jggerth]

take snapshots of the various submittals as archives, but always leave the latest files in the same folder -- do NOT rename it, especially as FINAL  (after all, the final revision aint)

For sorting purposes, name the archive/snapshot folders using standard YYYYMMDD format based on the date of the submittal/issue, and optionally add the purpose of the submittal.  So a set that was issued today for architects review would be archived under ..\ARCHIVE\20160810_arch_review.

Sheetset manager is a great tool to help manage that, as it will ignore the extraneous cruft that accumulates in project folders.