6 things I know about dates

I often have to manage documents for which versions and/or date may be an issue: meeting minutes, calendar of events, news stories, forms, procedures, etc. Here are 6 things I have learnt to deal more efficiently with such documents:

1 - For a document which is to be regularly updated, always keep the current version named the same. Whenever a new version is sent live, change the name of the previous one by adding its date at the end. For instance the current version could be ‘PriceCatalog.pdf’ and the previous version became ‘PriceCatalogMay07.pdf’. That way the link to the current version won’t have to changed all over the site, and old versions will be available to be link in an archive section.

2 - When creating an archive section, make sure archive pages are located in the same folder as current documents. Doing so you won’t need to change hyperlink or images path in archive page to keep them working.

3 - Dealing with folders over crowded with documents may be difficult. For more visibility, create as many sub folders as needed. It is up to you to find the maximum number of files per folder you can tolerate. For instance, for meetings minutes I like to create one folder per year.

4 - Figure out how files name can help you in your work. Depending of the content you’re dealing, you may find more useful to have the date at the beginning or at the end of the document name. Would you prefer to see files orderer by date or by document name?

5 - Find you very own naming protocol and stick to it. It will spare a considerable amount of time not to have to find out how files are organised each time you access a folder.

6 - When displaying dated documents (monthly calendar, minutes, etc.), rather choose to display more recent at the top of the list. Users won’t have to scroll down to see the last update, which is what they are usually interested in.