File naming is the least glamorous part of information management and the one that breaks first. A federated model is only as reliable as the team's ability to tell which file is which, who issued it, what it may be used for and whether it is the current one. On a project with a dozen originators and thousands of containers, that has to be answerable from the name and its metadata alone.
ISO 19650-2 asks for every information container to carry a unique ID built on an agreed and documented convention. The standard itself does not fix the fields. The UK National Annex does, and it is the convention most projects in the region adopt, often through a client's exchange information requirements that simply say ‘ISO 19650’.
The seven fields
| Field | Set by · length (2018) | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Project | The project · 2–6 | Two codes for one project across two appointments |
| Originator | The project, one per organisation · 3–6 | A consultant using its own house code instead of the one assigned |
| Volume or system | The project · 2 | Volumes invented by each discipline; nobody uses ZZ for ‘all’ |
| Level or location | The project · 2 | Mezzanines and roofs coded differently by architecture and MEP |
| Type | National Annex list · 2 | A model issued as DR, or a drawing as M3 |
| Role | National Annex list · 1–2 | The role of the company rather than the discipline of the content |
| Number | The originator, in sequence · 4–6 | Numbers reused after a container is withdrawn |
The separator is the hyphen-minus and nothing else. An en dash typed by a word processor, an underscore or a space all produce names that look right and sort wrong, and a checker that reads the name field by field will reject them.
Status and revision are not part of the name
The status, or suitability, says what a container may be used for; the revision counts its issues. Both travel as metadata beside the ID, and change as the container moves through the common data environment without the ID changing at all. A project may append them to a file name for exchange outside the CDE, but the ID itself stays the same from the first work-in-progress version to the archive.
| Revision | Form | Used with |
|---|---|---|
| Preliminary revision and version | P01.01, P01.02 … | S0: work in progress |
| Preliminary revision | P01, P02 … | S1 to S4 (shared) and B (partially accepted) |
| Contractual revision | C01, C02 … | A (authorized and accepted) and CR (as-constructed record) |
Setting it up on a Saudi project
- Take the project, originator, volume and level codes from the client's exchange information requirements or the BIM execution plan, and publish them as one code set before the first container is created.
- Name the National Annex edition (2018 or 2021) and extend the type, role and status lists only where the requirements differ, in writing.
- Assign each organisation one originator code at appointment, and make the number sequence the originator's responsibility.
- Check names at the gate: the CDE should refuse a container whose ID does not parse, rather than a document controller finding it a month later.
- Keep the register in one place. Every discipline builds and checks names against the same code set.
Our ISO 19650 file naming tool builds names from a project's code set and checks a pasted register field by field (separators, lengths, codes, status and revision) against either edition of the Annex. Information management is part of every BIM coordination appointment we take.
Frequently asked questions
Does ISO 19650 itself define the file naming fields?
No. ISO 19650-2 requires a unique ID built on an agreed and documented convention. The fields (project, originator, volume or system, level or location, type, role and number) come from the UK National Annex, which many projects outside the UK adopt.
Should the status and revision be in the file name?
They are metadata. A project may append them to the file name for exchange outside the common data environment, but they should never be treated as part of the unique ID, because the ID must not change when the status does.
What do ZZ and XX mean?
ZZ stands for all or multiple volumes or locations; XX for none. A site-wide drawing is ZZ; a document with no location at all is XX.
