Is it just me, or does every big project end up with a dozen tabs labeled “final_v2”, “final_final”, and “USE_THIS_ONE”?
How do you organize your Excel files so you know what’s what? Any naming hacks?

like
Posting as :
works at
You are currently posting as works at

Always include dates. 7.6.25,etc.

likesmart

Good advice I like that a lot

like

Putting the word “final” in a file name invites the dark spirits of partners past to ensure there is at least one more round of iteration/churn

likefunny

Very true haha

like

Always just put the date.

like

Everyone’s saying that here thanks

I never name anything final. It's always "DRAFT [date]" or v1, v2, etc.

like

Thanks for sharing

I don’t let my teams finalize their work until they have a well labeled excel with no dead tabs, useless tables etc. it’s just good hygiene.

like

Good hygiene is important in the world of excel haha

Love a date in every filename my logs generate, etc.

Excel's a no-brainer, though. Save to SharePoint. Use Version History.

like

Yess 🙌

v0.1, v0.2, v0.3, … , v1 (shared with client), v1.1, v1.2, v2 (shared with client), etc…

like

Interesting that’s a good use case

nomenclature matters (like everyone said, dates, times, etc) but it’s more about version control in my line of work (leaving check in comments).

files with a bunch of formulas and internal data should have _working appended to the file name (i.e. table1-1_data_working).

files that are sent to stakeholders should be static (copy+pasted as values from the working file). They should be saved without version numbering in the name as technically you’re providing that file as a near final deliverable (i.e. client_project_table1-1_data_20250707). It is possible that the stakeholder has comments or you catch an error, in that case you may choose to add “revised” or change the file date.

with all of that said, your approach will depend on the file use and how much collaboration is required. there’s many other ways to approach version control like folder structure, etc depending on your end goal (iterative updates, facilitating QC and review, or just sharing internally).

like

Thanks for sharing

I generally always use YYYY-MMDD-Project name v1.xlsx. However, with autosave, version history and cloud storage, I feel like there's no reason for version numbers anymore. At this point I just make the updates in the same file and can always go back to older versions if needed.

That’s what I do now haha

Sort by last modified. Changing the title won't do anything when there's multiple versions and people working on it.

Sharepoint helps alot and allowing only certain people to version control. If you want your own version, fine but you store it somewhere else.

No 20 versions of the same file in one folder. Agree with all stakeholders at certain intervals that one version is the current version and dump everything else into a superseded folder.

That sounds like a good workaround

I always put c at the end of whatever gets shipped to a client.

Ahhhh

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