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Year-Month-Day-Topics-Documenttype-Businessunit: Standard Naming Convention

A naming convention provides guidelines for naming documents and folders to help people search for and share information effectively. The standard naming convention elements are presented in a suggested order: Year-Month-Day-Topics-DocumentType-BusinessUnit. Additional considerations include using common separators like hyphens, language abbreviations, indicating versions, and avoiding vague terms to help organize files clearly.

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79 views2 pages

Year-Month-Day-Topics-Documenttype-Businessunit: Standard Naming Convention

A naming convention provides guidelines for naming documents and folders to help people search for and share information effectively. The standard naming convention elements are presented in a suggested order: Year-Month-Day-Topics-DocumentType-BusinessUnit. Additional considerations include using common separators like hyphens, language abbreviations, indicating versions, and avoiding vague terms to help organize files clearly.

Uploaded by

brucenormansmith
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Naming Convention Quick Guide

A naming convention is a procedure for people to follow when naming documents and folders, and can be used for both electronic and physical files. The names given to folders and documents help group information together and help employees to search and retrieve information effectively. Following these naming guidelines will improve everyones ability to find and share information.

Standard Naming Convention


The standard naming convention elements are presented here in a suggested order:

Year-Month-Day-Topics-DocumentType-BusinessUnit
Element Date Description A date associated with an action taken the document. The company follows the ISO 8601 format of YYYYMM-DD-hh:mm:ss Dates in a folder or document name can be very useful, but a simple numerical date can be interpreted in different ways. For example: Created, Sent, Received, Reviewed, Edited, Approved, Updated, Audited, Archived, etc. Topic The topic of the document. Topics include: Subject Headings Corporate & Organizational Topics o Functions o Activities o Products o Stakeholders or Clients o Geographic Locations o Issues Projects or Cases The type of document or record. Some examples include: Receipt, Expense Report, Agenda, Minutes, Report, Policy, Procedure, Memo, Guideline, Bylaw, List, Log, Lease, etc. The business unit who owns the document. Example might be meeting minutes, which exist for multiple business groups. Construction e.g. 2010-01-31-23:59:59-AuditLog e.g. 2010-01-31-Board-Minutes e.g. 2010-01-Report e.g. 2010-Budget

e.g. 2010-Travel-Policy

Document Type

e.g. 2010-Travel-Policy

Business Unit

e.g. 2010-01-31-HRTeamMeetingMinutes

Additional Considerations
Metadata Tags Depending on what electronic system you are using, some of the standard naming convention elements specified above may be available as metadata fields (aka tags). Generally speaking, these metadata tags are more useful than folder or document file names because they can be used by the system to

Naming Convention Quick Guide

query and present information. This means that duplicating them in a folder or document file name would be redundant. However some redundancy may be acceptable in certain situations. Separators Common separators include hyphens ( - ), dashes ( ) and underscores ( _ ). The use of hyphens is recommended. Words can also be distinguished by the use of capital letters, e.g. MeetingMinutes Language The company follows the ISO 639-2 standard for language abbreviations. English is represented with ENG and French is represented with FRA. Bilingual will be represented by the abbreviation BIL. Use the same language for the folder or document file name itself to ensure that they will be filed together. For example, TrainingPresentation-ENG and TrainingPresentation-FRA. Versions Versions can be indicated with dates, numbers, or words such as Draft, Comments or Final after the date or version number. If a version number is used, then the first digit v1.1 would indicate major revisions and the second digit v2.0 would indicate minor revisions. Multiple Parts If a large document is split into multiple parts, link the parts by using elements such as Part 01, Chapter 01, Section 01, and so on. For example, DiscussionPaper-Section01 and DiscussionPaper-Section02. Copies If duplicate copies of a document are necessary, be sure to include the term Copy at the end of the document name. This only takes a few seconds to do and it can save hours of time in the future. Controlled Vocabulary Use common topics that are understood by everyone. TERMIUM PLUS may be a good tool for finding standardized terms. Acronyms Acronyms should be avoided unless they are very unique and well known. Remember that documents are often shared with others and the meaning of acronyms may not be obvious. For example, Policy on Emerging Technologies would be clear but Policy on E.T. may not. Use of Personal Names Avoid personal names in folder names (e.g., "John's emails" or "Jane's drafts") because it is unclear how the documents within relate to the mission, goals and activities of the company. Personal names may be used in specific document file names to clarify authorship, to distinguish comments on drafts, etc. Miscellaneous Avoid terms like General, Misc, Other, Stuff, Files, etc. in folder names because it is unclear how the documents within relate to the mission, goals and activities of the company. The term General may sometimes be used in conjunction with a specific topic, for example Travel Planning General.

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