Agree with Marc that trying to get users to follow naming conventions is
difficult and hard to enforce.
It is therefore important to have a good structure and metadata for the
records.
One thing to bear in mind with livelink is that, yes you can have duplicate
file names but not in the same folder.
Paul
GMC records manager
-----Original Message-----
From: Fresko, Marc <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
<[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thu Dec 15 09:15:47 2005
Subject: Re: Naming of Documents
Tony
You have two conflicting requirements, arising from the two very different
environments: Windows and Livelink.
Filing into hard drive folders requires each document to have a unique name
(file name) within a folder - that is built in to Windows and is
unavoidable. Solutions to this involving naming protocols usually involve
structured file names that use some convoluted combination of date, document
type, author initials or surname, and (if you are lucky) a bit of
subject-related title. In my experience, these conventions are well-meaning
but rarely work well, and they rarely work for long. They are
user-unfriendly. Far better is to try to instil a sense of order and good
naming practice, as suggested by Susan Graham's "Standard Naming Conventions
for Electronic Records" (with the exception IMHO of rules 10 & 11);
because...
...Once you use Livelink, there will be no restriction on duplicate names.
At that point, you should not require structured naming, but everyone will
benefit from well-thought-out document names.
Marc Fresko
Cornwell Management Consultants plc
_____
From: The UK Records Management mailing list
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tony Cloke
Sent: 14 December 2005 13:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Naming of Documents
We have in Thames Valley Police an EDRMS (Livelink, supplied by the Open
Text Corporation) and are using the Police Service File Plan as the filing
structure within it. As part of the roll-out plan, we are requiring our
staff to move their documents into the PSFP structure on local hard drives,
and will allow them to get accustomed to using it before we move to
implement Livelink. Various concerns have been raised with me, including one
about naming of documents. The suggestion is that we should have a protocol
for naming documents, so that no two documents (or more!) have the same
name, which would then complicate things further when we eventually move
data into Livelink. Does anyone here have any policy, guidance, or something
similar that relates to naming of electronic documents? And, if so, may I
have a copy, please? If anyone else has either been through this process, or
is about to go through it, I would be very pleased to hear from you. Perhaps
we can share some learning points? Seasons greetings and many thanks in
anticipation of your help, Tony Cloke Senior Executive Assistant (Policy &
Information) Corporate Development Thames Valley Police HQ Oxford Road
Kidlington OX5 2NX Tel. 01865 846619
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