Document Naming System

Question

This is actually only tangent to engineering, and mostly related to Quality Management Systems, so this could be off topic.

For a document which has a specific Document Naming System in a Document Control format such as:

[Project Name]-[Document Type]-[Sequential]

Such as:

10001-LTR-00028 - The 28th Letter (LTR)
10001-DWG-00054 - The 54th Drawing (DWG)

How should the records derived from these documents be named?, for example:

The 28th Letter Template
The 28th Letter Signed
The 54th Drawing Approved by Client

And how should the records at specific dates be named? for example:

The 28th Letter Scanned the 2021-05-16
The 54th Drawing Scanned the 2021-05-16

Thanks in advance.

Can you explain the relationship between a "record" vs a "document" a little more? I.e. (how) is it different from being just another document-type? — Pete W, May 17 '21 at 00:01
Are you asking how to (or how **not to** parse into a database? There are tons of examples of Very_Bad_Parsing at thedailywtf.com . — Carl Witthoft, May 17 '21 at 12:31
@PeteW We understand a record in the ISO:9001 sense, as a kind of document derived from another document, i.e. a redline drawing would be a derived document from a final revision drawing. I am not taking that as a hard definition, due I don't know if there is even a crisp definition for this. — Brethlosze, May 18 '21 at 05:26
@CarlWitthoft This question is not dealing about parsing of characters. In here we can safely assume the document system properly handle it. — Brethlosze, May 18 '21 at 05:29

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered May 16 '21 at 17:07

There are lots of different ways to approach this problem - I've presented below one which I have seen in more than one company, and has worked well for each.

The file name becomes

[Project Name]-[Document Type]-[Sequential]-[Revision]-[Version]-[Optional Description]

The first three are self-explanatory.

Revision: This is either an Alpha (A, B, C) or Numeric (1, 2, 3) according to the status of the document as either 'development' or 'production'.

Version: This is used to keep track of draft copies between revisions, and is typically a two digit number (01, 02, 03).

Optional Description: A description may be added for all copies of a document, or sometimes only for exported (e.g. .PDF .STEP) documents. For CAD files that reference each other, there is often benefit in storing description in metadata instead.

So, for your examples, this would look like:

The 28th Letter Template:             10001-TEM-00028-1-00
The 28th Letter Signed:               10001-LET-00028-1-00
The 54th Drawing Approved by Client   10001-DWG-00028-1-00

All of these are recorded as "1-00", because they are all approved, released, non-draft files. Any file name ending in version -00 should be stored as a read-only copy

Note how the template is given a different Document Type - I have never seen a template treated as its end-document type - only ever as a 'template' document type.

Here is an extended lifecycle example for a part document:

10001-PRT-00037-X-01   Part document created. First draft
10001-PRT-00037-X-02   Changes made to part by designer, saved as next version for archive
10001-PRT-00037-A-00   First design review - stored as read-only copy for reference vs meeting notes
10001-PRT-00037-A-01   Saved as next draft version to allow changes to be made following review
10001-PRT-00037-A-02   Changes made to part by designer, saved as next version for archive
10001-PRT-00037-A-03   Changes made to part by designer, saved as next version for archive
10001-PRT-00037-B-00   Second design review - stored as read only.
10001-PRT-00037-1-00   Reviewer was happy with design, upgraded to 1-00 production release, document is signed off.

With regard to documents at specific dates - this should always be visible in/on the document. It is not the job of the filename to store this data, as it would be lost on a printed copy. For example, if you are scanning a copy of a file, because it has been signed - then the date should be written alongside the signature. In this case, the printed document would most likely be an Alpha Revision, and -00 version, with the scanned/signed copy saved with a Numeric Revision and -00 version, as a read-only copy. Because -00 documents should always be saved as read only, their date modified field serves as a record of the date of scanning, also.

I hope this serves some inspiration - ultimately every company is different, and it's OK develop your own system to fit your needs, as long as you are consistent in its enforcement.

Document Naming System

1 Answers1