Contemplating starting to use Evernote but not sure how to start

[rnix 0]

Hello all,

I'm considering starting to use Evernote to save my personal and business files however I'm not sure what account type I need and if I need multiple accounts or not.  Below is the situation - what would be the best practice for getting started?

- I run two companies, and would need to share access to some notes with employees but keep other notes confidential.  The companies should be kept separate. These are small businesses so each note or notebook would need to be accessible by 2-5 people

- I'd like to archive personal items as well and share with my wife but not have these visible to my employees

So, do I need multiple accounts? Do we create an account for each business and have employees use that login or does each employee create their own account and we share notes to them individually?

I do want the business card scanning functionality so I know I'm in for at least premium, but does the above situation require a business account? Multiple premium accounts? One premium account and several free accounts?

 

[DTLow 5,736]

You don't require a business account; but it provides additional features
Its also more expensive
I'm not a business account user, so I don't have much info on that level

With a personal account, you can set up notebooks and share them with other users

• a notebook for each company - shared
• Another notebook - not shared for confidential stuff
• And another notebook to share with your wife
• And a personal notebook for your stuff

So, there's a few Notebooks to set up.  You can organize these in stacks; possibly one for each company
After that, look at Tags to organize your data

>>Do we create an account for each business and have employees use that login or does each employee create their own account

Don't share logins
Everyone should have their own account

>>One premium account and several free accounts?

That will work.  If the free accounts feel they need additional features, they can upgrade

Be sure to create the shared notebooks in the Premium account; the notebook owner gets dinged for uploads.  The premium account has high upload limits

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi.  I'd say 'keep it simple' and expand your use of Evernote as your familiarity and experience grows.

Premium is a good choice for business use because you get access to email and chat support for when things go wrong.  You also have access to the forums,  where we'll be pleased to help suggest options if you want to run your plans by us.

Notebooks can be shared to others in a variety of ways,  but unless you plan on training your staff in how to use Evernote,  I'd suggest you start off with public links to notebooks which will allow them to see,  but not edit,  anything you want to share out.  See Share notebooks for more.

As you have two companies - and a wife - you might want to look at three 'stacks' of notebooks,  one for each.  Notebooks in each stack can be shared to the group associated with it. How to organize notebooks into stacks 

Scanning is easy - one scanner can be used to move paper into any notebook - you initially might want to scan documents into files in a folder on your desktop,  and move those files manually into the right notebook.  Once you're happy with the way things work you can use scripting (on a mac) or other automation tools (windows) to automate the process.

Don't waste time trying to set up the 'best' way to handle any of this - just start using Evernote so you can fully understand what it is capable of.  You'll probably change how you do things a dozen times in the first year;  but you can't lose information.  Just keep on trying different schemes until you find something that works.  (And then stop!)

Good luck with all of that - we're here all year...