No doubt there are plenty of file indexing solutions out there. These range from the desktop search application such as Microsoft Desktop Search, Google Desktop Search, Copernic,…etc to the more pragmatic solutions such as simple file search as the one found in Explorer or Directory Opus. But one that gets often forgotten is file tagging.

At first I thought tagging was not only time consuming, but also inefficient as it requires you to tag all the files you potentially may want to retrieve. Honestly, I tend to prefer applications that do the job automatically as long as they do it right.

After experimenting with TaggedFrog  I have to admit that it does a pretty good job and may become your favorite personal document management system (what some smart people call “Configuration Management”) for Project Managers and similar.

As I was looking for a way to quickly retrieve files on shared network drives without imposing any tool on my fellow colleagues, I have given file tagging a try.

The principle is pretty simple: Each time I save a file on a shared drive, I also drag and drop it on tagged frog. Once in tagged frog I associate the file a number of tags such as a project keyword (VAT, Microsoft, Apple,…), a document type (Scope, Justification,…), a file type (ppt, doc,…). 

I also stick to a strict naming convention as it goes about file name. I typically name my files [Document Name]  [YYYYMMDD]  V X-Y  [My initials].[file extension] (ex: Project scope  20100616  V 1-0  EN.docx). If I introduce a new file version, I drag and drop it into a subfolder that I call “Old”. By doing so, my tag refer to a file that no longer exists, and I just need to adapt the link accordingly to have it pointing to the latest version…tata you have got a version control system.

Do you want to retrieve a given file, just click on the tags from the cloud and…tata you have got a quick way to retrieve your files. What else do you need?

Hope it helps!

If you are an advanced user, you may also want to look at Tag2Find.