Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Converting folders of files into a database
#1
More talk from here: http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1...sg-2479168

Matt and I were talking about possibly using something “live” such as Slack or Teams as a repository of linkable documents. While I can sorta see how they may be adapted for that, any link repository still needs to be an actual interface such that docs can be added, downloaded, deleted.

The other idea was build an index (Word or PDF file) but maintaining that would just be more of the same challenge. You could search for titles faster than doing on a shared network drive, but that latter allows us to additionally search within the actual docs if we don’t know what the filename is. None of that sounds like it should even exist as a challenge, but I suspect what each department (meaning me, for myself) should just create and keep an index file for myself and to hell with the rest.

Here’s the present system:
- main folder
1) Files that talk about filing structure, procedures, old logs. Most of these are spreadsheets
2) And then the controlled docs main file

-controlled docs file
1) A copy of a spreadsheet template for each doc gets tracked
2) Folders for each controlled document (currently 131) some are obsolete, some need updating, all are numerically alphabetized into two sections, 07-xxxx and 08-xxxx ... so those numbers appear first in the folder names. It’s great if you know the doc number but murder when you don’t.

- individual controlled doc folder
1) A folder named Current Version, which will have both .doc and .pdf copies
2) A folder named Obsolete
3) that doc’s spreadsheet which includes data about who requested the change, who approved and when, effective date of revision, what the doc supersedes, a brief description of changes ... some or all may be filled in
Reply
#2
So I think that’s what I’ll do: slowly build myself an index for the files I need to use, maintain.

I’m tempted to make a spreadsheet with sortable columns but not until I learn Excel’s search function. Most of the time I’ll search a word that returns nothing, but be staring right at the word anyway.

But a text file or PDF would be easier to turn into a wiki, along with easier to make descriptions of who uses the file and when and so on.
Reply
#3
I am assuming you have ruled out Google Drive? It's practically tailor-made for what I'm understanding you want to do.
Reply
#4
Paul F. wrote:
I am assuming you have ruled out Google Drive? It's practically tailor-made for what I'm understanding you want to do.

We're Google-free at work, but don't even use MS OneDrive for storage. SharePoint would be more like it for doc management but we don't use that either. Maybe the need isn't that great.

Our shared drive is a NAS somewhere. There's probably a database app they could run on it (or against it, using the NAS just for file hosting).
Reply
#5
Two thoughts about Excel searches:

Be sure that you are highlighting a cell inside the group of cells that you want to search. I have had empty searches because the selected cell was below the last entry.

Also be sure that you do not have empty rows or columns. Any entries beyond a blank row or column will not be searched.
Reply
#6
Is the business Mac-centric?

Have you considered tagging documents with key words and using Spotlight to search through them?
Reply
#7
Windows. So many daily treats, from the network mapping going haywire (running all queries through .local for two days, making the shared network drive uselessly slow) to Outlook telling me, “oh, we want to get rid of your EXCHANGE access because it caused a 1.5sec delay in launching Outlook.”

Honestly, what effing planet are these people on?
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)