How do you guys organize your mystery shop information on the computer. I am at a loss as to a system to use..... Have a folder for each company, each job, photos, receipts?????....can someone give me some good ideas about how to organize info on my computer so I can find it if I need it...how do you name your files....I am the type of person that my cookware is in the kitchen somewhere...I have gotten better at organizing getting ready for shops...but don't have a clue how to go about it on the computer.....any ideas would be appreciated....thanks.

I create a shortcut for the desktop of each company I work for with any regularity. I then drag all of the shortcuts into one folder on the desktop so I don't have overwhelming clutter. My photos are in folders by MS company--and labeled with clients and company and all of those folders are dragged into one big folder just titled "ALL MS PHOTOS"

When I have shops to do, I drag out the icons from the MS folder for whichever companies the shops are for and leave them in plain sight on the desktop near each other. Once I'm totally finished with that company I move the icon so I don't get confused, especially if it's getting to be late at night and I'm getting tired.

My paperwork itself is easy--I use clothespins and those rectangular plastic mesh baskets. I have one in white and another in color. Projects to do are in one basket and as I finish that location I fasten the forms together with my receipts with my trusty clothespins and put them in the other basket. When I carry stuff into the house it's easy to dump my camera and various little purchases in one and carry the whole shebang into the house.

There can be a bit of trial and error to find what works for you, but here are some existing threads with ideas:

[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

I save everything to a thumb drive so that it can easily be copied to my laptop and/or my desktop machine and permanent storage is on the desktop where it is backed up from the thumb drive at least monthly and the desktop is backed up 2X per year. That being said . . .

My thumb drive is used for many things, so at the 'root' directory of it there are the following folders:

Personal stuff #1
Personal stuff #2
Mystery Shopping
Personal stuff #3
Personal stuff #4

When you open 'Mystery Shopping' there are folders for each company and my spreadsheet to keep track of shops:

ABC Company
BCD Company
CDE Company
2011 Shopsheet.xls

Inside the ABC Company folder there is a folder called "Old work" and after I back up the thumb drive I empty the "Old work" folder and then copy all the work from the month just ended into the "Old work" folder. As I accept work, I make a pdf of the instructions and drop it in the ABC Company folder. Lets say that the shop is 'Bobs Candy Canes'. The instructions will read 'Bobs Candy Cane instructions'. Now I go to Bobs on the shop and I have a couple of photos and a receipt. These go into the ABC Company folder and get named 'Bobs receipt 12 18 2011', 'Bobs cashier', 'Bobs storefront', etc. The files are now easy to find when I do the report to quickly upload them. Once I finish the report, I most likely will save it in pdf format and call it 'Bobs report 12 18 2011'. Because I used 'Bobs' in each item name, all of the pieces of the Bobs job will fall together alphabetically.

If I am doing 7 Bobs shops in December, they will be 'Bobs Mainstreet receipt 12 18 2011', 'Bobs Oak St receipt 12 19 2011' etc. and the other files will also include the information for the shop materials to fall together on the thumb drive (though you can do the same sorting by file date).

But lets say that for each of the 7 Bobs I have 40 to 50 photos. I will create a new folder titled 'Bobs Mainstreet','Bobs Oak St' etc. to have a place to keep that mass of photos together. All materials for that location will be in the location's folder in the ABC Company folder.

File management on the computer is very much like file management in a metal filing cabinet. You have a cabinet for the overall business, you have drawers for different types of materials, you have folders for each company and within each company folder you have a papers for each job. If the jobs get too big, you may want separate folders within the company's overall folder. The difference with the computer is that you can easily make a copy of everything from time to time and empty out the cabinet so that in July you aren't still thumbing through January's paperwork.

Namaste Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How do you guys organize your mystery shop
> information on the computer. I am at a loss as to
> a system to use..... Have a folder for each
> company, each job, photos, receipts?????....can
> someone give me some good ideas about how to
> organize info on my computer so I can find it if I
> need it...how do you name your files....I am the
> type of person that my cookware is in the kitchen
> somewhere...I have gotten better at organizing
> getting ready for shops...but don't have a clue
> how to go about it on the computer.....any ideas
> would be appreciated....thanks.

1. i have a folder on my desktop called "Mystery Shops".

2. i have sub-folders in the main "Mystery Shops" folder organized by date with any uploads (scans, photos, receipts). the sub-folders are labeled by a 6-digit date sequenced with year/month/day.

for example, today's sub-folder will be labeled as "111219", representing 2011, December 19. this numbering format keeps the most recent date at the bottom of the list. all uploads for shops for the same day go in the same sub-folder.

3. individual uploads (scans, photos, receipts) in the individual sub-folders are also labeled with the date, but also the client and location.

for example, "111219acmecorp163mainlombard" which represents 2011, December 19, AcmeCorporation 163 Main Street Lombard. (AcmeCorporation is a fictitious name.)

4. i use "microsoft onenote" to instantly create a copy of all completed online reports at the touch of a button, so as to permanently retain a copy of all of my narratives submitted to the different mystery shopping companies.

5. i copy/print the shop logs of each mystery shopping company on a monthly basis to later transfer to a paper journal and keep for paper copies.

6. i copy/print my paypal transactions from the paypal site on a monthly basis to later transfer to a paper journal and keep for paper copies.

7. i back up all content on an external "passport essential" drive, in case my computer goes down.

8. at year's end, i have a completed income/expense paper journal, containing all info and print-outs that i can carry along with me for tax purposes.

as a side note, i also use a text-reader (TextAloud) with British Daniel Voice that reads all shop directions and questionnaires to me in a human (not digitally mechanical) voice at 2x speed. also, i sometimes use Dragon Naturally Speaking to directly speak text into the computer without typing, but not on the computer which i am using right now. (i have two different computers.)