Need help with your Directory Structure Management?

File naming conventions at first sound like a large and tedious pain. However, if implemented correctly they can save your company a tremendous about of time and money. Even better than a naming convention is a little old batch file with the directory structure of each project folder, placed in the boot path of your computer. For instance: Lets say your directory structure for Current_Projects looks something like this.

Current_Projects

Year “ex. 2013”

Location “ex. Boise_Id”

Insert a contract or project number here if you have one and could potentially have more than one contract/project.

Named_Project_Folder

Docs_Correspondence
Docs_Correspondence\Arch_Engineer_docs
Docs_Correspondence\Contract_Documents
Docs_Correspondence\Contract_Documents\Sub-Contracts
Docs_Correspondence\Contract_Documents\Change_Orders
Docs_Correspondence\Emails
Docs_Correspondence\Emails\Sent_Email
Docs_Correspondence\Faxes
Docs_Correspondence\Letters
Docs_Correspondence\Digline
Docs_Correspondence\FDW
Docs_Correspondence\Misc
Docs_Correspondence\Owner_SOW
Docs_Correspondence\Pictures
Docs_Correspondence\Punch_List
Docs_Correspondence\Project_Estimate
Docs_Correspondence\SOW
Docs_Correspondence\Submittals
Drawings
Drawings\gis
Drawings\cad
Past_Performance_SOW
Progress-Schedule

Simply place this in a text file and place the dos command for make directory in front of it which is “md”.

So it would look something like this.

md Docs_Correspondence
md Docs_Correspondence\Arch_Engineer_docs
md Docs_Correspondence\Contract_Documents
md Docs_Correspondence\Contract_Documents\Sub-Contracts
md Docs_Correspondence\Contract_Documents\Change_Orders
md Docs_Correspondence\Emails
md Docs_Correspondence\Emails\Sent_Email
md Docs_Correspondence\Faxes
md Docs_Correspondence\Letters
md Docs_Correspondence\Digline
md Docs_Correspondence\FDW
md Docs_Correspondence\Misc
md Docs_Correspondence\Owner_SOW
md Docs_Correspondence\Pictures
md Docs_Correspondence\Punch_List
md Docs_Correspondence\Project_Estimate
md Docs_Correspondence\SOW
md Docs_Correspondence\Submittals
md Drawings
md Drawings\gis
md Drawings\cad
md Past_Performance_SOW
md Progress-Schedule

1. Place the structure that works for you in a text file and name it something like “projects.bat”.

2. Then place this file in a folder on your main computer drive Usually this is your C:\Drive.

3. Next place the folder in your computer path “;C:\file_structure” substitute your file name for file_structure.

4. Open the Command window and navigate to the project file folder, type the batch file name, and hit enter.  (An Alternate method is to download FREE COMMANDER  a free file manager utility, install it, and navigate to the project file, and then hit tools and dos box.   This will place you in dos already navigated to the folder selected in free commander.  Then all you have to do is simply type the batch file command and hit enter, then close the command window.)

Tip: In windows 8.1 Pro you can open the file manager, navigate to your project/working folder, click on file at the top left and open the command window.  Then if you have already placed the folder with your batch file in your working path, you simply have to type the batch file command.  (which is the name of the batch file withou the .bat)

Tip: To navigate to a file in at the command prompt simply use the CD command (ex. cd file_name, to go back words it is simply cd..).  Make sure you type the file names correctly and in the right case.

Tip: Make sure to Use the Underscore _ instead of spaces between words in folder names when using the md command.  If you use spaces you will end up with a directory for each word.