Document review/editing/management best practices?
December 17, 2020 5:55 AM Subscribe
My workplace does a lot of collective editing of documents. Right now, we email versions back and forth with edits and comments and it's a mess. We are also really bad at organizing those documents when they're complete. Looking for resources to start tackling this problem (special considerations inside).
There was a plan earlier this year to get set up with MS Teams/Sharepoint, but that's not happening for multiple reasons (one being that we're not sure new tools will solve what is a structural/procedural problem). For other reasons, Google Docs is not a good fit either.
One big problem is probably that, although we are a library, we don't actually have any one person in charge of collective internal document management. Based on the freeform way that documents are named and stored, it's clear that none of us really know how to do this well. We also have multiple places where finished documents can be stored (website-hosted hub, shared drives, online HR hub) and no overarching plan for what should go where and making sure documents stored in multiple places are updated consistently.
I'm looking for dead-basic "how to" resources to start improving this situation. Not really looking for solutions that involve additional tools beyond Windows basics unless they're 1) free/inexpensive 2) SPECTACULAR. Probably looking for business process resources actually. I suspect "designate one person to manage this" would be ideal, but let's assume that won't be happening anytime soon due to funds and other workload. Super general principles would be best, we definitely don't have the wherewithal to implement a detailed plan designed for a corporate environment, for instance.
Thanks everyone!
There was a plan earlier this year to get set up with MS Teams/Sharepoint, but that's not happening for multiple reasons (one being that we're not sure new tools will solve what is a structural/procedural problem). For other reasons, Google Docs is not a good fit either.
One big problem is probably that, although we are a library, we don't actually have any one person in charge of collective internal document management. Based on the freeform way that documents are named and stored, it's clear that none of us really know how to do this well. We also have multiple places where finished documents can be stored (website-hosted hub, shared drives, online HR hub) and no overarching plan for what should go where and making sure documents stored in multiple places are updated consistently.
I'm looking for dead-basic "how to" resources to start improving this situation. Not really looking for solutions that involve additional tools beyond Windows basics unless they're 1) free/inexpensive 2) SPECTACULAR. Probably looking for business process resources actually. I suspect "designate one person to manage this" would be ideal, but let's assume that won't be happening anytime soon due to funds and other workload. Super general principles would be best, we definitely don't have the wherewithal to implement a detailed plan designed for a corporate environment, for instance.
Thanks everyone!
Best answer: There's a ladder for getting better at this.
It starts with saving new versions of the document with the date in the filename. So StrategicPlan.docx gets saved as StrategicPlan-171220.docx. You'll still have problems knowing what changed and ensuring people are editing the most recent version.
Next step is turning on track changes for all edits. This solves the "knowing what changed" issue. You're still going to be reconciling edits to older versions.
Next step is having a per-project space for saving the current document. This makes editing the most recent version better, but you'll still have people that insist they need to edit locally and end up with rogue versions. You'll also have people locked out of the document when it's in use.
Teams is actually a really good next step for solving the procedural issue at this point. It actively discourages saving local copies and allows for simultaneous edit. I think it's better than Google docs on this front, as Google loves to save copies of things to your personal drive. Many not-tech-savvy people are going to have trouble even figuring out how to get the files to open outside of the web browser or teams client in a native Word instance.
Naming and organizing the documents is a bit of a different beast. Accept that you will end up with sprawl, and build a retention policy around it. The way to deal with cruft on the filesystem is a) every document has an owner, and b) every owner needs to validate that it is in active use or there's a legal retention requirement once every 1-2 years, otherwise it gets deleted.
posted by bfranklin at 6:14 AM on December 17, 2020 [13 favorites]
It starts with saving new versions of the document with the date in the filename. So StrategicPlan.docx gets saved as StrategicPlan-171220.docx. You'll still have problems knowing what changed and ensuring people are editing the most recent version.
Next step is turning on track changes for all edits. This solves the "knowing what changed" issue. You're still going to be reconciling edits to older versions.
Next step is having a per-project space for saving the current document. This makes editing the most recent version better, but you'll still have people that insist they need to edit locally and end up with rogue versions. You'll also have people locked out of the document when it's in use.
Teams is actually a really good next step for solving the procedural issue at this point. It actively discourages saving local copies and allows for simultaneous edit. I think it's better than Google docs on this front, as Google loves to save copies of things to your personal drive. Many not-tech-savvy people are going to have trouble even figuring out how to get the files to open outside of the web browser or teams client in a native Word instance.
Naming and organizing the documents is a bit of a different beast. Accept that you will end up with sprawl, and build a retention policy around it. The way to deal with cruft on the filesystem is a) every document has an owner, and b) every owner needs to validate that it is in active use or there's a legal retention requirement once every 1-2 years, otherwise it gets deleted.
posted by bfranklin at 6:14 AM on December 17, 2020 [13 favorites]
Regarding document naming and organisation, Smithsonian Institution Libraries has basic best practices for this.
posted by sizeable beetle at 6:27 AM on December 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by sizeable beetle at 6:27 AM on December 17, 2020 [7 favorites]
It starts with saving new versions of the document with the date in the filename. So StrategicPlan.docx gets saved as StrategicPlan-171220.docx
Ouch. StrategicPlan-20201217.docx, please.
posted by flabdablet at 6:32 AM on December 17, 2020 [39 favorites]
Ouch. StrategicPlan-20201217.docx, please.
posted by flabdablet at 6:32 AM on December 17, 2020 [39 favorites]
Just to be clear, the year month day order is superior because for filenames that are otherwise identical, it will sort in date order.
posted by LizardBreath at 6:40 AM on December 17, 2020 [19 favorites]
posted by LizardBreath at 6:40 AM on December 17, 2020 [19 favorites]
Collaborative editing and document organization are separate issues and may even be a bit in conflict with each other.
In my organization, we also had a hodgepodge of places to store documents, which was very frustrating. We ended up standardizing on Owncloud, which is a self-hosted equivalent to Dropbox. Something like Dropbox, or Owncloud, or Box would be a good start as a generally accessible place to store your documents. Having all the shared documents show up on everyone's hard drive like just another directory of documents is powerful and convenient.
Someone will need to take responsibility for wrangling these docs into order, at least initially. Come up with a folder hierarchy that is self-explanatory. In my organization, what made sense was to organize most of our docs by year, with a standard template of subdirectories like "insurance," "financials," "receipts," etc. There are a few non-chronological folders outside this hierarchy too. But being able to spool up a new year by copying and pasting the "year template" directory is handy. Once we got that set up, it wasn't hard to keep things organized. There aren't a lot of files in any one subdirectory, so finding anything isn't that hard, although having obvious file nomenclature (as suggested in that Smithsonian doc) makes filename searches easier.
Collaboratively editing files is another matter. If you've got, say, a Word doc stored in something like Dropbox, you can't have two people editing their instances of that doc at the same time, as they'll wind up stepping on each other each time they save. I'm not aware of a check-out/check-in function for any of these "shared folder" services. The way we've dealt with this is for one person to edit a file and share their screen in a Zoom session so the rest of us can kibitz, or to upload a copy to Google Docs so that we can all edit it live, and then pull the changed version back down into Owncloud.
What these services do offer, however, is recoverability for accidentally deleted files, and in some cases a sort of versioning in the background, although not something you'd want to rely on for tracking changes on a fine-grained level.
posted by adamrice at 8:08 AM on December 17, 2020
In my organization, we also had a hodgepodge of places to store documents, which was very frustrating. We ended up standardizing on Owncloud, which is a self-hosted equivalent to Dropbox. Something like Dropbox, or Owncloud, or Box would be a good start as a generally accessible place to store your documents. Having all the shared documents show up on everyone's hard drive like just another directory of documents is powerful and convenient.
Someone will need to take responsibility for wrangling these docs into order, at least initially. Come up with a folder hierarchy that is self-explanatory. In my organization, what made sense was to organize most of our docs by year, with a standard template of subdirectories like "insurance," "financials," "receipts," etc. There are a few non-chronological folders outside this hierarchy too. But being able to spool up a new year by copying and pasting the "year template" directory is handy. Once we got that set up, it wasn't hard to keep things organized. There aren't a lot of files in any one subdirectory, so finding anything isn't that hard, although having obvious file nomenclature (as suggested in that Smithsonian doc) makes filename searches easier.
Collaboratively editing files is another matter. If you've got, say, a Word doc stored in something like Dropbox, you can't have two people editing their instances of that doc at the same time, as they'll wind up stepping on each other each time they save. I'm not aware of a check-out/check-in function for any of these "shared folder" services. The way we've dealt with this is for one person to edit a file and share their screen in a Zoom session so the rest of us can kibitz, or to upload a copy to Google Docs so that we can all edit it live, and then pull the changed version back down into Owncloud.
What these services do offer, however, is recoverability for accidentally deleted files, and in some cases a sort of versioning in the background, although not something you'd want to rely on for tracking changes on a fine-grained level.
posted by adamrice at 8:08 AM on December 17, 2020
Simultaneous edit really is a critical step in cleaning up this process. We use Google Docs for some things like internal and training materials, and Confluence for things that are actually destined for public documentation.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:49 AM on December 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Lyn Never at 9:49 AM on December 17, 2020 [1 favorite]
Google docs handles all of this. There is built in versioning which allows for an audits and rollbacks that need to be performed. The startup I work for uses it for everything. Meeting minutes, presentations, quick spreadsheets, etc. inline editing and comments are amazing when someone shares their screen.
posted by jasondigitized at 7:12 PM on December 17, 2020
posted by jasondigitized at 7:12 PM on December 17, 2020
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I wouldn't rate this as one big problem so much as the big problem. Solve that one and the rest will all fall into place.
posted by flabdablet at 6:12 AM on December 17, 2020