How to Organize Your Data

Organizing data may seem like a final flourish—until you need a file (urgently, of course!) and realize you’re looking for a needle in a haystack.

You can save yourself and your team from wasted time and wild goose chases by following a simple file structure from the start. A logical structure also makes it possible for you to control permissions by group, not by individual, improving your security posture (and making your auditors and investors happy).

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Scroll through this demo for tips to transform your data from messy to meticulous.
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No Organization

Taking a “controlled chaos” approach might work—if you plan to be your business's only employee. Otherwise, it might be next to impossible for someone to find what they’re looking for when eight slightly different versions of your pitch deck live in the same place as your co-working lease and your health insurance summary and your tax documents. These are also the perfect conditions for the wrong person to stumble upon sensitive personal and financial information.

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For improved accessibility and data protection, we recommend cloud storage over local storage, even if you’re working alone.

Internal & External

First, we recommend splitting internal from external files. Depending on your core business, your external files could include data to share with partners, documents for investors, or resources for contractors. This split is a key defense against outside actors accessing restricted information.

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If you have multiple collaborators who use different productivity suites than your own (i.e., Google vs. Microsoft), consider using a third-party storage platform like Box, Dropbox, or Egnyte for external files.

By Department

Next, we suggest separating internal documents and data by department, even if members of your founding team oversee multiple functions. As those functions grow, comingled data is a major security risk and a huge pain to separate later. Adopting this habit lets you sidestep the problem entirely.

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Data storage can become expensive, especially if you regularly save multiple versions of large files. If this happens to you, try storing your large files in a dedicated folder branch so you can automate archiving more easily down the road.

By Access

Within each function, you may need a restricted access folder to protect sensitive information that should not be shared with the entire team. Individuals should be added to this group on an as-needed basis only. We recommend keeping all restricted access folders in this level of your file structure, as burying them in downstream folders may make permissions more difficult to manage.

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Some platforms require that nested folders share identical access permissions, including Google or Box. In these cases, you can create separate folders named “Finance” and “Finance Restricted” to achieve the same effect.

🎉 Data, Organized 🎉

At this point, it’s up to you to choose what further divisions are right for each team and their duties. This could include new folders for specific projects, document types, clients, and so on.

Enjoy finding what you need in a flash!

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