Document and File Management

Office assistant, records clerk, administrative officer, NGO admin officer — I make sure any file can be found, trusted and kept safe.

You are the person files end up with — an assistant, a records clerk, an admin officer — and every week someone asks you for a document that took twenty minutes to find, or that nobody can find at all.

What you'll be able to do

• Diagnose why files get lost and design a filing plan that fixes it
• Build a shared folder tree with a naming and versioning convention the whole office follows
• Digitise paper files with a scanning and indexing method that survives an audit
• Set access rights and confidentiality rules that protect sensitive files without blocking work
• Set up a backup routine and recover from an accidental loss or a broken laptop
• Apply retention and archiving rules so old files are kept exactly as long as required, no more, no less

How it's built

Course content comes from free open material — the Google Workspace Learning Center, Microsoft Learn documentation on SharePoint and OneDrive, and the public guidance published by ICA (International Council on Archives) and ARMA International on records retention. On top of that we teach the LES Institute own filing plan and naming convention templates adapted to offices, NGOs and small administrations across Central and West Africa, where reliable internet, shared computers and paper still coexist.

What you earn

• Free completion records from the open providers, in their own name
• An LES Institute certificate covering an assessed filing plan and a migrated shared drive

Requirements

• Secondary school completion
• Basic computer use and an email account
• Access to a shared drive (Google Drive, SharePoint or OneDrive), or centre access
• A phone or scanner for the digitisation exercises