I was lecturing during a Intro to Project Management when a student from a company concerned with cost asked me how to make a change control system on a budget. They were a Macintosh house and wanted some kind of change control system. They had been using index cards, but they did not want to buy a full on client/server solution. These kind of problems are like candy to me. I’ll tell you my solution after the break.
My first attempt was to try this using Bento, but they nixed that because it would be caught up in a Bento Database. They wanted something non-proprietary. Bet you already know what I was going to suggest next, because it is in the title of the post. Yes, I suggested EagleFiler with some of my own magic in it.
Change Control in Project Management is one of those problems you have to solve. Using cards, paper, and folders is just messy, but it can work. EagleFiler can work with this mess and make it a paperless or less paper solution. Plus if you use an encrypted sparse image, you have built in security.
In Eagle Filer I had to have two parts to this solution. I needed a template file for the Change Control form, and I needed a library with Status folders. I envisioned this as a single Library for each project. A library would be created for each project, but you can do this with one library for all projects. Just make sure that you have the project number in the document, so you can filter for those Change Control Forms on the project number. A sample set of folders is shown on the following screen shot.
The magic is using a RTF file for the change control form and using it as Stationery. Now all you have to do is have the Change Control clerk enter the forms into EagleFiler, and now you can keep control of the Change Control Forms. A change Control Form is shown in the following screen shot.
This would not be a TechnoWarrior Solution unless I had everything wound up in a library for you to download. Just download and expand the files. Put the directory where you want. Download it here.
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