TIMS3 organizes and groups files and document records into projects. A project is a general term related to a grouping of document information. In an engineering environment, a project is self explanatory. In a facilities management environment, for example, a project may relate to some work in progress, to a building or area, or to some facility or service. Every organization will have their own specific use and interpretation for a project.
Projects may have one or more sub-projects to provide a more refined grouping of files. You may have any number of levels of sub-projects. The TIMS3 Project Navigator provides an easy facility for moving through a series of projects and sub-projects.
Each project has a specific project name, which is a key-word created by the system administrator to identify this group of related document and document records. Selecting a project will point you to a specific storage location within the network (i.e., a specific directory/folder on a particular file server node). Your current working folder on your local workstation will correspond with the project folder on the server. Most TIMS3 options are available only after you define which project name you want to work with.
The creation of projects, the allocation of projects to servers (if multiple file servers are available) and the assignment of folders to locate the projects is one of the most important considerations when you initially install the system. A logical approach should be used in defining projects and sub-projects based on the following considerations:
The sharing of documents between users, departments, design
disciplines and applications
Time and resource accounting
The performance of the server(s)
The capacity of the backup and archive system, and
the ability to easily restore a damaged file system
Hardware (server and disk) redundancy/li>
The ability of system administrators to easily
locate and identify documents outside of the document management system
The capacity of the server(s) taking into account growth in the number and size of documents, and in the number of users