Announcing the Evernote Business Public Beta

[Leo Gong 59]

UPDATE: Spaces are now available for all International Businesses (except China). Please follow the instructions below to activate them for your team.

UPDATE 2/1: We've incorporated your feedback, and made progress on Spaces since I last posted this here. "What's New", "Pinned Notes", and Space Directory have been added across all clients (Except Android, which does not yet have Space Directory). We're also implementing bug fixes and a new Onboarding experience with an update that should roll out in the next few days. This update is a candidate for what we will release to the public. Please leave your feedback here, we'd love to hear from you!

Hi everyone!

We're excited to announce the public beta of an upcoming rework for Evernote Business.  One of the top themes from business user feedback was a need for a better experience that helps teams to work together and stay on the same page. Examples are: asking for easier sharing of multiple notebooks, more shared hierarchy (shared stacks), clearer indication of who has access to content, and an easier way to stay on top of content that's constantly evolving.

Introducing Spaces in Evernote Business—bringing people, projects, and ideas together so your teams can do their best work.

• Establish a shared organization for your teams' content — store your notes and notebooks in Spaces so they're all in one spot
• Easily share and access relevant information for projects, topics, or teams — you can share your Spaces to easily give, and manage access to all the contents within the Space
• Keep everyone on the same page — every member sees and has access to everything in the Space
• Update 2/1: Added to all platforms: Stay on top of the latest updates — the "What's new" section is unique to Spaces and shows you content that has recently been updated
• Update 2/1: Added to all platforms: Make important content front & center for the team — Pin important and relevant information to "Pinned notes" for the whole team to see
• Update 2/1: Added to all platforms except Android: Discover others' content in Evernote Business - List your Spaces in the Space Directory and join others' Spaces

Check out our video overview

 

 

Spaces will be available for all businesses (except China), starting today — activate it for yourself in 3 steps:

1. Admins for US businesses will need to Enable Spaces Beta in the Manage Betas section of their admin console (on the web)
2. Users may need to opt into the beta on their individual apps:
   • Windows: Tools > Options from the menu bar > In the “General” tab, check the box next to "Enable beta features and updates"
   • Mac: Preferences > In the “Software Update” tab, check the box next to "Update to beta versions when available"
     • Note: If you do not see the "Update to beta" version, you are most likely using a copy of Evernote downloaded from the Mac App Store. Please download the non-appstore version from www.evernote.com/download and replace your app-store version with this one.
   • Android: Make sure you have Evernote installed > Join the beta tester program from Evernote’s page in the Google Play Store > Wait for your approval notification > Install the beta version of Evernote
   • iOS and web: Since your company has activated the beta, you’ll automatically see it as soon as you log in
3. Lastly, update your app to the latest version of Evernote

Note: We're working on adding in localization support - we will be providing an update when that is ready.

 

We want your feedback!

We've been doing research in our private betas, but we need your feedback to help make this launch useful for you. The latest builds are what we are considering for launch, and we need your feedback to point out issues so we can pre-empt them. We're beginning on a long journey to make Evernote Business a better experience for teams, and we'd love for you to work with us on the way.

 

P.S. There is some additional reading

Help center article

[gottastayorganized 6]

So excited for this! It is weird that I initially received an email to join this beta program a month or so ago and our business account is still in the "waiting" period and has not been activated. While I have another business account and decided to activate the beta on the 19th and it immediately took me to the spaces feature. Any idea on how to get my first business activated on the beta????

[Leo Gong 59]

@gottastayorganized we're glad to hear you're excited! I enabled previously waitlisted businesses this morning - you should be all set now. I'd love to hear your feedback once you're up an running - these are still relatively early builds, so there will be some oddities - but your feedback will really help us prioritize what to work on. Thanks for being part of the beta!

[Lisette Wilson 0]

My Admin page indicates the beta is available. In Preferences (Mac app) Software Update, Update to beta versions when available is checked. I've updated as of 15 minutes ago. 

 

I don't see the ability to create spaces anywhere. Not in sidebar as in video and don't see a way to add it. Not under File or any other menu. What am I missing?

[Atul 0]

I've been utilizing the Beta for a few days now and it has been fantastic!  Having all of the information available in one spot makes it so much easier when working with the team.  Quick question - what is purpose of the Spaces Directory as all invited members of the team should have access to all of the files in the work space.

[James Longley 90]

@Leo Gong - will Spaces be rolled out for Evernote Personal accounts after the business release? 

[Leo Gong 59]

@Lisette Wilson Hmm. Can you see Spaces when you log on to www.evernote.com/Ion.action? If not, you may want to double check that you've clicked "enable Spaces" on your admin console. Otherwise, there's probably 2 things:
1. Double check that you're looking at your business account:

(Make sure that second option is selected)

2. If that doesn't work, try restarting your app. There was a weird bug for some users where they had to wait 24 hours and reopen the app to see Spaces.

 

@Atul That's a wonderful thing to hear heading into the break! I'll relay your kind comments to the team. What platform are you using Evernote on? Is it Web / Mac / Win / Mobile? As for Spaces Directory - that allows you to discover, and join other Spaces in your business (once implemented)

@James Systems Matter Yes. We're trying to be pretty careful to not move everyone's cheese, but expect this to roll out to Personal accounts (but maybe in a slightly limited form) after we launch Spaces for Business.

Have a happy holiday season everyone! And please do leave more feedback if you have any.

[phils 220]

@Leo Gong Do you want Spaces-related bug reports here, or ....?

Also: the email that gets sent to business members includes this:

Dashboards – Customize your view to quickly find what's important.

I haven't seen any indication of this feature - is it still to come or is it lurking someplace I haven't found yet?

[Leo Gong 59]

@phils yes please, go for it

[Guest Mkay]

Hallo,

when is the release in europe?

[Atul 0]

On 2017-12-22 at 5:32 PM, Leo Gong said:

@Lisette Wilson Hmm. Can you see Spaces when you log on to www.evernote.com/Ion.action? If not, you may want to double check that you've clicked "enable Spaces" on your admin console. Otherwise, there's probably 2 things:
1. Double check that you're looking at your business account:

(Make sure that second option is selected)

2. If that doesn't work, try restarting your app. There was a weird bug for some users where they had to wait 24 hours and reopen the app to see Spaces.

 

@Atul That's a wonderful thing to hear heading into the break! I'll relay your kind comments to the team. What platform are you using Evernote on? Is it Web / Mac / Win / Mobile? As for Spaces Directory - that allows you to discover, and join other Spaces in your business (once implemented)

@James Systems Matter Yes. We're trying to be pretty careful to not move everyone's cheese, but expect this to roll out to Personal accounts (but maybe in a slightly limited form) after we launch Spaces for Business.

Have a happy holiday season everyone! And please do leave more feedback if you have any.

Using it on Mac, web and iOS. Works well across all platforms.  I’d like to see the What’s New and pinned notes on iOS and Mac as well, great feature. 

[phils 220]

Issues:

1. On my Mac client, "Move Notebook" works fine.  On my Windows client, I don't have "Move Notebook" on the context menu.
    
2. On both Windows and Mac clients, "Import Content..." is disabled; have not figured out a state that enables it.

[Leo Gong 59]

@phils 1) it is coming soon on a upcoming build for Windows. 

2) We left the option there greyed out as we haven’t had time to implement it. How important do you feel the import dialog is? Btw it is available on a web in case you need it. 

[phils 220]

1) Got it, no problem.

2) I think it's quite important as it makes it easy to move multiple notebooks into a Space, rather than having to right-click each one and move it individually.  This will be especially valuable as part of the initial Spaces onboarding process that you'll be encouraging businesses to go through since in one step, they can use Import to easily move a bunch of existing notebooks into the Space.
 

Also, just to confirm - is it correct that the "Dashboard" feature mentioned in the "Welcome to the business beta" email is something still to come in the near future?

[gustavgi 311]

Are you planning to implement pinning Tags into Spaces as well?

[Leo Gong 59]

@phils thanks for that feedback. Yes, dashboards are still coming on most platforms, but if you log onto the web you’ll actually see them there.

@gustavgi could you clarify what kind of tags functionality specifically? Tags will be supported but not sure if you had a specific workflow in mind. 

[gustavgi 311]

14 hours ago, Leo Gong said:

 

@gustavgi could you clarify what kind of tags functionality specifically? Tags will be supported but not sure if you had a specific workflow in mind. 

Not really, but I was thinking of some way to make it more clear what a certain Space is really about, as well as making relevant tags more accessible just like the pinning of notes makes accessing important notes makes it more productive.

In the example picture in the original post I don't really have any idea what the processes located in the Space is about except for the main title Newsletter Redesign. Allowing for pinning clickable tags or at least some sort of tag cloud would therefore be more helpful.

I am also wondering if there will be a limit on the number of Spaces.

[octopusintell 5]

Hi. I am a UK business and I am struggling to find the "update software" tab on my mac evernote. 

I am just being dumb or is there a reason for this?

Many thanks

Graeme

[DTLow 5,749]

5 hours ago, octopusintell said:

I am struggling to find the "update software" tab on my mac evernote

There are two versions of the software

1. App Store; Apple controls the updates
2. Direct Download; User controls the updates. 

I see this on my direct download version
  and in Preferences   

[octopusintell 5]

Thanks. Appreciated. 

[octopusintell 5]

So business and personal are completely separate apps? 

You not move a personal note into business??

[Chantal Leonard 213]

3 hours ago, octopusintell said:

So business and personal are completely separate apps? 

You not move a personal note into business??

@octopusintell Business and Personal notes are available in the app but you need to sign up (and sign in) to your business account separately.  You can then move notes from Personal to Business using the Move Note functionality. Feel free to DM me if you'd like more info.  

[octopusintell 5]

Thanks Chantal. Resolved. Many thanks

[phils 220]

On 12/27/2017 at 3:10 PM, Leo Gong said:

dashboards are still coming on most platforms, but if you log onto the web you’ll actually see them there.

@Leo Gong Oh OK, so the "dashboard" is the home page view for a Space on the web client?

[Leo Gong 59]

@phils it refers to the place that contains the What’s New and Pinned widgets, with more widgets to come in the future. 

[Jennifer Thompson 0]

Would love to be able to use the webclipper to clip notes into notebooks within spaces. Do I need to update the webclipper or is that functionality that doesn't yet exist (which I totally get)? When I use the webclipper, I don't see spaces and I also don't see any of the notebooks within spaces. 

[Leo Gong 59]

Thanks @Jennifer Thompson - this is an upcoming feature that we're aiming to introduce in time for the launch.

[Guest Enrico]

On 12.12.2017 at 3:36 AM, Leo Gong said:

Spaces will be available for all businesses (except China), starting today

I just deployed Evernote Business for one of our clients and I found that Spaces is not available for businesses in Germany. 

Mare you enrolling this beta gradually or did we miss something?

 

Enrico Nahler

Evernote Certified Consultant 

[Guest]

On 12.12.2017 at 3:36 AM, Leo Gong said:

Spaces will be available for all businesses (except China), starting today

I just deployed Evernote Business for one of our clients and I found that Spaces is not available for businesses in Germany. 

Mare you enrolling this beta gradually or did we miss something?

 

Enrico Nahler

Evernote Certified Consultant 

[Guest IA1]

- Is there any way to create spaces that are globally visible to everyone in a given business domain? We'd like to deploy Evernote spaces to hundreds of people, and manually inviting people one at a time to a space won't scale for us.

- What is the 'spaces directory'? It shows up as a checkbox option when creating a space. Does the space directory address the issue above re: space discoverability/sharing? Is it a feature that hasn't shipped yet? Any ETA on it?

- If spaces can't solve the global sharing / discoverability problem, can something similar be accomplished by sharing notebooks somehow and making them publicly accessible, or would you still have the issue of not being able to find them without someone explicitly sharing them to you?

For context on these questions, the workflow I'd like to implement is:

• Any user in our org can create a space for a type of vendor conversation, e.g. PR Firms, real estate brokers, contract recruiters
• Anyone in the org can see all of those vendor spaces and add a new notebook for a new vendor within a given space, plus notes for each conversation with that vendor

Thanks!

 

[Leo Gong 59]

@EnricoNahler The admin must first enable Spaces from the Beta Management section of the Admin Panel, and then users need to opt their clients onto the beta (see instructions in the announcement post). Did the admin see an option for enabling Spaces in their Admin Panel?

Re: Comment above:

On 1/10/2018 at 4:00 PM, Guest IA1 said:

- Is there any way to create spaces that are globally visible to everyone in a given business domain? We'd like to deploy Evernote spaces to hundreds of people, and manually inviting people one at a time to a space won't scale for us.

- What is the 'spaces directory'? It shows up as a checkbox option when creating a space. Does the space directory address the issue above re: space discoverability/sharing? Is it a feature that hasn't shipped yet? Any ETA on it?

- If spaces can't solve the global sharing / discoverability problem, can something similar be accomplished by sharing notebooks somehow and making them publicly accessible, or would you still have the issue of not being able to find them without someone explicitly sharing them to you?

For context on these questions, the workflow I'd like to implement is:

• Any user in our org can create a space for a type of vendor conversation, e.g. PR Firms, real estate brokers, contract recruiters
• Anyone in the org can see all of those vendor spaces and add a new notebook for a new vendor within a given space, plus notes for each conversation with that vendor

Thanks!

 

Space directory is close to what you're looking for. It will be coming in a week or so, look out for that.

• Users can create a Space, and list it in Space Directory
• Other users in the business can find that Space in Space Directory
• They can either request access, or join with pre-set permission levels (this is determined by the person who listed the Space)

The user will be joined to the whole Space however, not just a specific notebook. There's a workaround - you could 1) Join the Space via the Space Directory, 2) Share the notebook to yourself and 3) Leave the Space.

[Leo Gong 59]

Hi all, I have some updates!

UPDATE 2/1: We've incorporated your feedback, and made progress on Spaces since I last posted this here. "What's New", "Pinned Notes", and Space Directory have been added across all clients (Except Android, which does not yet have Space Directory). We're also implementing bug fixes and a new Onboarding experience with an update that should roll out in the next few days. This update is a candidate for what we will release to the public. Please leave your feedback here, we'd love to hear from you!

I have updated the original post to reflect the new information as well.

[Guest IA1]

@Leo Gong good stuff! Is there a way to delete spaces? I can't see how to do it even in the admin panel - they show up as un-deletable business notebooks, it seems.

[gottastayorganized 6]

Great! Would also love the the ability to drag and drop into pinned space from recent note area.

[octopusintell 5]

I would say you need to look at messenging. Stand alone. 

Slack is ok but it is not Evernote. One stop for all.

[NP-Patrick 1]

Looking good so far, I'm on Mac.

However, bug: when I view my business on Web, Shortcuts does not show any saved searches, only shows notebooks and notes. 

Also, being able to share a space with a non-user by public link would be awesome for working with clients

thanks

[FireFish 2]

.... and we join this beta how?

[gottastayorganized 6]

Would love drag and drop into pinned notes as I may see a recent note that I want to quickly drag over there. Would love search capability in my space and to be allowed to right click a pinned note and duplicate it. Also, would love to be able to chat within my space about that spaces content.

[gottastayorganized 6]

Also, would love to have custom searches apply to spaces or you can call it saved filters. That would huge for collaboration! Oh, and be able to move spaces to favorites....

[macfixer 713]

On 2/9/2018 at 1:02 AM, FireFish said:

.... and we join this beta how?

I think this post covers it: 

 

[Leo Gong 59]

Space deletion is almost ready for prime time - stay tuned!

Thanks for the feedback @gottastayorganized! We're working on a lot of what you asked for (shortcutting spaces, saved filters; dragging and dropping notes into Pinned is a little tricky for technical reasons so you may need to wait on that one. Same thing for right clicking to duplicate - love the idea though, I'll see if we can figure out another way).