Best practice: Keeping project snapshots

Question

I’d like to suggest that it’s best practice to make a snapshot of a project by either making a back up, or (preferably) copying to a non-editable project, every time you print all or part of a project, and every time you record audio. The snapshot should contain just the books or partial books that were printed or recorded. I know that at least some other project coordinators follow this practice.

If your project was called rusCA (“Central Asian Russian”), and you print the NT in 2018, you could name the copy:

rusCA18

… and give nobody edit rights. (For this reason, I like to limit project short names to six characters: this way dated snapshots will fit within the eight-character maximum for short names.)

Here are some of the reasons for having snapshots:

• You have an electronic version of what was put into print. This can be used for reprints, for apps, or for other publications;
• It can also be used with the Compare Texts feature (though a marked point in the Project History would be just as good);
• You can archive the snapshot to REAP, either straight away, or at a later point when there is the time available to do this.

In some circumstances (see below), you might want to make a further copy called:

rusCAv1 or rusCA1

(you’d increment the number if this is not the first snapshot). This project would have editing allowed, in order to make minor changes for later print runs, and would probably only be needed in the case that the main project branches in some way from the printed/recorded version. (Branching could happen – and, in our project, has happened – where continuing translation work means that previously completed books are changed for consistency with newly translated books, or because of newly discovered issues during comprehension testing, or because a change in the language used in schools means that the readership is able to understand a wider vocabulary than previously was the case.)

In the editable snapshot project, you mght, for example, make corrections before a second or subsequent print run, or before an update to an app. If you want to maintain consistency with an audio recording, you could limit these changes to corrections in punctuation and footnotes, which will not make the text deviate from the audio.

---

I’d welcome any comments from others’ experience. In our project, the four Gospels, printed in 2010, are undergoing a full revision, meaning there are two branches – two versions – of these. Different experiences in your project may have given you other insights or suggestions regarding snapshots.

(Note re this site: Writing this left me wishing there was a category for Best Practices. But then again, maybe not, since this is a tech support forum. If this post doesn’t fint the aims of this site, then please tell me!)