Project Archiving

[Opie]

About every six months or so, I am tasked with relocating old projects to an archive drive. This drive allows only read only permissions to the old projects. If one of the drawing from an old project is needed, it must be copied back to our designated projects drive.

What are some ways you use to determine the age of a project? In other ways, how do you determine if a project is not active any longer? Our record keeping of active and inactive projects leaves something to be desired.

[chadley]

We have the same problem and we went to the same people I posted about yesterday called "trouble with user deleting and moving files". Niwot Networks (http://niwotnetworks.com/) They created a program which we keep on our project server that scans the drive for folders that have had no activity for 4 months (you can set it to any time you want) if it finds any, it will move the folder to an "Inactive Projects" folder on another server that it set to read-only for everyone but me. Once the folder is moved an email it sent to me (and few other people) to notify us that the project has moved. We can then decide if we want to burn it off to disk etc. No one but a select few know that location and with the the You Got Files program I know if someone copies it back to the project file server. We've only had this system going for a short time but so far it's working. It's simple and it makes my life much easier!
~Cynthia

[drafting.33933]

Our I.T. guy has a completely separate server for the archives, then it is linked to the main server with the shortcut. The access is available to all, but read-only. Only a few of us in our office have saving rights to that server. Hope this gives you an idea.

[dplotts88110]

What are some ways you use to determine the age of a project? In other ways, how do you determine if a project is not active any longer? Our record keeping of active and inactive projects leaves something to be desired.

We can determine the age of the project based on the project number. 07000 is a 2007 project. 95000 is a 1995 project. The root of the network drive has folders for job years (05, 06, 07...).

A project is deemed not active for us once the building is completed construction and we have been paid for all outstanding invoices, or the project is deemed dead by the project team.

Every few months I'll go through the server and move all inactive/completed projects to an archive server. The files are marked read only, as is the network drive. If a project comes back to life, it is copied back to the production file server. Files on the archive server are backed up to 3 sets of DVD-R disks. One set for general use, one for storage onsite in a vault, and the third off site.

[Opie]

We have the same problem and we went to the same people I posted about yesterday called "trouble with user deleting and moving files". Niwot Networks (http://niwotnetworks.com/) They created a program which we keep on our project server that scans the drive for folders that have had no activity for 4 months (you can set it to any time you want) if it finds any, it will move the folder to an "Inactive Projects" folder on another server that it set to read-only for everyone but me. Once the folder is moved an email it sent to me (and few other people) to notify us that the project has moved. We can then decide if we want to burn it off to disk etc. No one but a select few know that location and with the the You Got Files program I know if someone copies it back to the project file server. We've only had this system going for a short time but so far it's working. It's simple and it makes my life much easier!
~Cynthia

Cynthia,

Was this a custom program your firm purchased from Niwot Networks? I was not able to find anything on their site that resembled what you mentioned.

[Opie]

Our I.T. guy has a completely separate server for the archives, then it is linked to the main server with the shortcut. The access is available to all, but read-only. Only a few of us in our office have saving rights to that server. Hope this gives you an idea.

I'm currently doing that with a mapped drive to a separate drive on the server.

[Opie]

We can determine the age of the project based on the project number. 07000 is a 2007 project. 95000 is a 1995 project. The root of the network drive has folders for job years (05, 06, 07...).

Sounds like you have a good system in place. Our system was in place prior to me working here. It does not appear to be changing anytime soon. Do you have projects that span multiple years?

A project is deemed not active for us once the building is completed construction and we have been paid for all outstanding invoices, or the project is deemed dead by the project team.

How do you get the information from accounting that all outstanding invoices are paid?

Every few months I'll go through the server and move all inactive/completed projects to an archive server. The files are marked read only, as is the network drive. If a project comes back to life, it is copied back to the production file server. Files on the archive server are backed up to 3 sets of DVD-R disks. One set for general use, one for storage onsite in a vault, and the third off site.

Very good idea. I'll need to make additional back-ups of our currently archived data.

[dplotts88110]

Sounds like you have a good system in place. Our system was in place prior to me working here. It does not appear to be changing anytime soon. Do you have projects that span multiple years?

Yes, multiple and many years. Our system was in place in a similar format when I came here 7 years ago, but since then it's evolved to what it is now.

How do you get the information from accounting that all outstanding invoices are paid?

The projects stay on the active projects list until they are taken off at a staff meeting. Our CFO attents the staff meeting and she is able to give input on invoice status of jobs. We're only a roughly 30 person firm, so it's easier to get accounting info.

[chadley]

Yes it was, you can call them they are a small company (maybe just 2 of them) and they are very attentive and nice! I really don't work for them or have anything to do with them, they just did such a great job I thought I would mention it. 1-800-657-3278

[andy.manninen]

The method for archiving that we use at my _ork is all manually done. About every 6 months all the project managers fill out a form specifying what projects are dead and they are removed from the server to storage DVD's on/ offsite. Our projects potentially span up to 5 years, but with the inception year in the project number we can keep track of the older jobs and get them into storage when we can.


:Cheers: