1. Data Backup locations
The “K” drive is provided for everyone is their own network backup drive location. This drive is tried to your Documents, Music, and Picture’s folders. Meaning. any files or folders placed in them is automatically backed up and available on any City Mission computer that you sign in to. The files stored in any other folder on the PC are not backed up. A common occurrence is to store file on the Desktop. These files are not backed up and will be lost in the event the hard drive in the PC fails.
What has been discovered is City Mission files are being stored on personal online backup locations such as Google Drive, OneDrive, Drop Box, and Box.com. We are asking that those services no longer be used to store files or folders.
2. Organize and Name Consistently
It is important to develop a consistent method of organization that you and your team familiarize yourselves with. The best way to do this is to establish a standard method of sorting files so your team is always on the same page with knowing where they are and how to locate them. This will reduce the chances that someone misplaces or deletes data by accident. It will also save time and energy when it comes to determining whether data has been lost or misplaced and retrieving or restoring this data. Anytime a file is created, modified, duplicated, or shared, make sure it is placed within the correct folder and labelled properly.
It is also a good idea to adopt a naming convention for better document management and simplicity of organization. For example, if you are working on client files, you can set up a naming convention that follows this format: “CLIENT NAME_PROJECT NAME_VERSION#_DATE”. This makes it incredibly easy to search for any document. Make sure all team members are on board with the different naming conventions and you will soon notice how locating, restoring and sharing files becomes much easier.
3. Prioritize Important Data
Within this process of organization, you should also prioritize your data in order of importance. While all files need to be backed up, older files with outdated information does not need to stay backed up. The same can be said for files that have not been modified recently. As we look through the “JProjects” and “Joint Projects” there are files dating back to 2006. Surely, we all agree that some of these files can be sorted and deleted.
To do this, we need to define what ‘important’ data is. An easy guideline to follow is to prioritize data that, if lost permanently, would interfere with your work, or pose a hindrance to the business. Some examples are private business correspondences or the details of important transactions. Make sure the entire team understands what files should be considered high priorities, so that at the end of each workday, they can easily identify the critical files and store them correctly.
4. Remove Unneeded Data
To better utilize the network storage services we will need to take inventory and remove old and unused files and folders. For the network drives to remain an effective and efficient resource, the following steps will need to be taken:
1. Please verify that all files you may have saved to the network are named properly and saved in the appropriate directories.
2. Please delete any files that are no longer needed.
3. Please delete multiple revisions of files that are currently being used wherever possible.