Date format in naming convention

[Lynn Petrillo]

Does anyone know if there is an industry standard for the date format in a document’s naming convention. Ex. prot v1.0_21Feb2025 (DDMMMYYYY). Thank you.

[Eldin Rammell]

Hi Lynn.

There is no industry standard as such. However, common practice followed across industry suggests the following:
– for the month, use the name of the month (abbreviation or full) to avoid any potential misinterpretation with day i.e. use 03APR2025 rather than 04/03/2025 or 03/04/2025

The exception is where the ability to sort document names chronologically is important. In these cases, use the reverse date format YYYYMMDD e.g. 2025-04-03_MVR. However, this does of course risk breaking Rule #1.

If using a modern eTMF or other eDMS, there should be no reason to include the date in the document name. Instead, use a metadata date field. But old habits die hard….

[Sarah Hitching]

CDISC TMF Refence Model has two Date Convention Documents; one spreadsheet and one word document. Here is the link, then look for ‘TMF Resources’ at the bottom of the page, then ‘Date Conventions’

[Author]

Posts