The Dangers of Storing Credentialing Information Using Different Formats

File and folder organization can hinder or help efficiency depending on how an organization sets up their naming conventions. Commonly an organization will assign files to a user: thus implying files should be stored within a user’s folder.

Common Causes

Different Needs Between Departments that Share Data: Users like to add and maintain “their” queries and reports in their own folders, therefore not always conforming to a global naming convention.

No Universal Policy: Set standards are not in place to inform users of the proper method to store files.

Example

Users from a particular organization implemented different naming conventions for reports and images without a specific protocol in place. When writing reports, the reports were saved within unique users folders rather than folders designated for specific processes. Due to a lack of global conformity, users were forced to resort to considerable scrolling to find the right report.

Ramifications

File Duplication: If a file is stored to a particular user’s folder, and a new user does not have access or rights to that folder, the new user may recreate the file within their own folders, taking up unnecessary extra space.

User Efficiency: Storing files and folders in an unstandardized manner will lead user to be inefficient when completing their work. If a user must search in multiple locations before they find what they need, then time available to complete other tasks is significantly reduced.

Best Practice

Create folders that represent processes rather than individuals: Determine and enforce universal naming conventions for each folder that is created for a particular process. Audit Periodically: Periodic audit of folders can keep these files under control.