8 Best Cloud Organization Tips (And Why You Should Use Them)

The cloud makes it easy to share, store and manage files, but without routine maintenance, it can become messier than a department store on Black Friday. As a managed service provider, this isn’t our first rodeo. The good news is there are several best practices for cloud organization that you can use to streamline your storage for increased productivity and efficiency. Here are eight of the best cloud organization tips.

1. Consider Systematic Organization

Before you set off on your cloud organization journey, set aside some time to think about how you’d like to store your files. Would you rather sort by category or maybe alphabetical order? Commit to a systematic method of storing files and inform your coworkers to eliminate any future confusion. 

2. Create a Folder Naming Structure That’s Universal

One way to better organize your cloud is to separate your files into neat categories via a universal folder naming structure. As an example, if you make a folder named “Billing” all your billing and billing-related documents should go into that folder.  

To optimize this category even more, make sub-folders like “Payroll” and “Taxes” to know exactly where everything important resides.

3. Limit Your Team to Three Sub-Folders

As you’ve likely gathered from the heading, a good practice is to keep your folder structure to three sub-folders or fewer. Anything more than that can create a bottomless pit where it feels like you’re double-clicking endlessly to find just what you’re looking for. 

Bonus Tip: Make sure that you label your folders clearly. Use descriptive keywords like “benefits,” “taxes,” “insurance,” etc.

4. Group Items via Tags

If you’re looking for an easy way to group similar items together, use tags in your organizational efforts. Tag any file you upload to your cloud storage service, whether it’s a  document, picture, video or anything else. Tags help you locate what you need faster, especially if you have a lot of files stored in your company’s cloud.

5. Merge Folders With Fewer Than 10 Files

When you make folders for just a few files, you’ll end up with too many unnecessary folders. This issue not only makes finding files more difficult but also intensifies your cloud’s disorganization. You can streamline your storage by merging folders with fewer than 10 files.

6. Clean Up Your System Regularly

As your company adds more files to your cloud storage systems, keeping them clean and organized becomes an increasingly difficult task. By making a weekly effort to organize your cloud storage system, you can make the daunting task that much more manageable. 

Here are three ways to clean up your system:

• Consolidating folders with fewer than 10 files to another folder
• Deleting unneeded documents
• Moving documents back to their proper folder

7. Move Older Files to an Archive

All companies have older files. As companies grow and expand, training documents, processes and other corporate documents become dated and unused. Consider moving unused files and folders to a master “Archives” folder to get the files out of the way of users. 

As an added benefit, an archive folder still keeps the older files accessible if needed later.

8. Cultivate Best Practices Amongst Team Members

Everyone works differently, and, therefore, organizes things in unique ways, which is one reason why cloud storage can become messy. Cultivate cloud organization best practices by training your employees on how to save files correctly. 

While it might feel like another thing added to their endless list of other work priorities, emphasize the associated benefits like enhanced workflows and time-saving potential.    

Why You Should Use These Tips

Now that you know eight of the best cloud storage organization tips, it’s important to remember (and communicate to your team) why following them is worth all the effort. Your business won’t be able to reach your cloud’s fullest potential if your employees have trouble finding what they need. 

Here are some of the best reasons to keep your cloud organized:

Backups

You never know when disaster will strike; that’s why it’s essential to have an organized cloud to ensure you have backup copies of videos, documents, pictures and anything else you might need to access later.

Accessibility

A disorganized cloud not only makes it hard to locate files but also creates a frustrating user experience. By enhancing file accessibility, you increase job satisfaction for your coworkers.

Efficiency

A well-organized cloud significantly reduces search queries and becomes less time-consuming. Increase your company’s efficiency by eliminating unnecessary files and creating an organization system to keep clutter at bay.

Productivity

It’s hard to focus on what matters most when you have a lot of files scattered around. By organizing your files, you’ll find yourself spending less time searching for the things you need to work and more time getting stuff done.

Increased Security

Prevent sensitive information from floating around on your cloud. Increasing your cloud organization helps increase your company’s overall cyber security by helping to prevent unauthorized access to important files.

Tracking

As a business professional, you need to know where everything is at any given time, or at least be able to locate whatever you need quickly. With a clean cloud, you’ll be able to keep track of all your files instead of guessing where your KPI document went or wondering about the details of your office’s latest birthday celebrations.

Sharing

If you’re collaborating on something together, there are times where you’ll need to work on documents across team members. Sharing files between coworkers is easier when everyone can access what they need quickly and easily.

Increased Space

As you and your business continue to add more files, you may notice your cloud storage starting to fill up. Having a system for storing files helps you create space for new projects.

Optimize Your Cloud Organization Strategy

The cloud makes your data accessible from anywhere at any time, making it an invaluable productivity tool. But with files being added every day, it can become messy and overwhelming almost overnight.

Use these cloud organization tips and partner with an experienced IT service provider to develop a system that promotes efficiency and minimizes clutter.

Contact us or schedule a quick meeting to explore cloud organization solutions designed to optimize your business.