Box folder structure for custom app

I read the Folder structure best practices and still have a question on the scenario that I am working on. I am looking into Box API to support document management for our Application. The application will upload the documents. From a Application standpoint the documents can be related to A, B and C category(keeping it simple here), where A, B, and C are dynamic like Axxx, Bxxx and Cxxx (xxx are unique numbers) and are hierarchical Axxx/Bxxx/Cxxx. So, when a document is uploaded should I create the respective folders and upload the document doc1 here: Axxx/Bxxx/Cxxx/doc1? or Should I just upload the doc1 to a static folder: A/B/C/doc1 and then apply a metadata template with some fields to doc1? Which then I can use to query during search. In case of static folder structure A/B/C there will be a lot of files under each folder as I am storing the docs under a category and on the other hand if I had a dynamic structure Axxx/Bxxx/Cxxx there will be lot of folders as the folders are dynamic and will have the same number of files as static structure but it would help narrow the search with the unique folder id and the search will be limited to that folder (ancestorFolderId).

Static Folder structure

Dynamic Folder Structure

-A

---A.doc

---A12.doc
---------------B

--------------------someb.doc

--------------------someb1.doc

--------------------someb2.doc

--------------------someb2xx.doc

--------------------someb2x1.doc

--------------------someb2x3.doc

-----------------------C

--------------------------someC1.doc

--------------------------someC2.doc

--------------------------someC3.doc

--------------------------someC21.doc

--------------------------someC22.doc

--------------------------someC23.doc

-A100

---A1.doc
---------------B100

--------------------someb.doc

--------------------someb1.doc

--------------------someb2.doc

-----------------------C100

--------------------------someC1.doc

--------------------------someC2.doc

--------------------------someC3.doc

-A200

---A12.doc
---------------B200

--------------------someb2xx.doc

--------------------someb2x1.doc

--------------------someb2x3.doc

-----------------------C200

--------------------------someC21.doc

--------------------------someC22.doc

--------------------------someC23.doc

Thanks,

Vishal

jcleblanc

June 11, 2020 12:15

Hi ,

Depending on how many files will be stored under each folder, either method should work fairly similarly, Personally I would go for the more grouped structure of the dynamic folders for a few reasons:

As you scale, if you are storing large quantities of files under each folder, it will make searches quicker and everything more responsive to be able to break things up into a heavily folder structure.
Collaborations and sharing should also provide more security as you can collaborate / share smaller amounts of content from each folder, as opposed to having to share a generic folder with multiple different groups underneath.

So, in short, either should work, but dynamic would probably be my preference if I was building it out.

- Jon

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