Problem with tags in shared notebooks

[caitkennedy 8]

My husband and I have a shared notebook that he created and in which he is able to create tags but I am not. I can add them to a note but when the same note is reopened, the tag is gone.

Is there a reason for this or is it a bug? (He is a premium user, I am not.)

TIA,

Caitlan

[PinkElephant 8,750]

You can try to revoke the share, and share it again.

[Carlos Cadu 16]

+1 "Can edit and add new tags"

[jefito 5,598]

This is pretty clearly a feature request, so let's make it official... go ahead and vote y'all...

[DTLow 5,744]

On 4/5/2019 at 4:17 PM, cbaston82 said:

I would like for the people I share my notebook with to be able to add tags.

You're welcome to add your support to requests for this feature.
Use the voting buttons in the top left corner of the disucssion

 

[engberg 89]

Guests can only add tags to a note if those tags are already part of that shared notebook. I.e. the tag must already be applied to at least one of the other notes in that notebook. This is to prevent a guest from polluting your account with dozens of tags that you need to find and delete on the left side.

[caitkennedy 8]

Thanks! That was the answer I was looking for. It doesn't solve the problem, but it makes sense.

[sbliven 9]

@engberg

Is that the official response, or just a description of the current behavior? This seems like a major limitation to me. As a premium user, if I grant someone access to a notebook I expect them to make changes to it responsibly. After all, they clearly have the power to "pollute" my notebook with new notes and content.

Tags should be editable by anyone with write access to the note. I consider any other behavior to be a bug.

[jefito 5,598]

Is that the official response, or just a description of the current behavior?

That's the official response -- Dave is the CTO of Evernote. It's by design, so maybe a bug by your definition, but...

[caitkennedy 8]

Tags should be editable by anyone with write access to the note. I consider any other behavior to be a bug.

I have to agree with sbliven: this is becoming more and more of an issue and needs to be reconsidered. It should at least be an option to grant permission to tag in shared notebooks.

[nvanmatre 5]

I also agree with sbliven. If this is a decision based on performance or some other technical issue then... if not then it is extremely limiting to premier users. Really makes sharing notebooks in a team environment clunky and almost unusable .

[engberg 89]

You can apply existing tags (i.e. tags that the owner has already applied to at least one note in that notebook). If you want to make a big pool of tags available to your "guests", then just use that tag on one or more notes.

[trebbr 1]

A bigger problem for me is that the tags in the shared notebook lose their hierarchy (they appear in a giant, alphabetical one-level list).

I've been presuming this a bug or something which will be implemented soon....?

[sbliven 9]

I've taken to "tagging" notes in shared notebooks by simply including a line in the note body like

Tags: tag1, tag2, ...

This way I can at least search for tags, even if they don't show up in the left panel.

[andrzej 3]

Hi,

I use Evernote for almost 2 years now and I'm loving it!

Today I tried to use the shared notebook concept in order to use Evernote in our team. The idea is that any of our team members can create new projects (we use tags as project names).

You can apply existing tags (i.e. tags that the owner has already applied to at least one note in that notebook). If you want to make a big pool of tags available to your "guests", then just use that tag on one or more notes.

This seems to be a serious limitation for us. Is there any other way we can share the same workflow without anyone depending on the notebook owner to create a new tag?

Regards,

Andrzej

[Owyn 457]

No, but, the current situation is not all bad.

Assuming that there are a limited number of project identifiers and qualifiers that are valid as tags, then, having that explicitly limited is a way to prevent bad data entry.

I use a limited number of high level tags but feel free to add keywords as needed to note titles or bodies to ensure that I can find a specific note in the future. The biggest mistake I made when I started to use Evernote was to continue the extensive tagging practices that I had developed as a long term Delicious user. The aha moment came when I started to see notes found in search results because they contained the text I was looking for in the content.

My 2cents.

[andrzej 3]

No, but, the current situation is not all bad.

I use a limited number of high level tags but feel free to add keywords as needed to note titles or bodies to ensure that I can find a specific note in the future. The biggest mistake I made when I started to use Evernote was to continue the extensive tagging practices that I had developed as a long term Delicious user. The aha moment came when I started to see notes found in search results because they contained the text I was looking for in the content.

Right, it makes sense to use search instead... I will think about it.

I got used to tags for project names so that I can quickly filter notes based on that. Just 2 clicks and I can see what I need.

What surprises me most is that in all the other places Evernote just gives me a very flexible tool and I can tweak the way I use it. That's how I apply GTD with Evernote. Here, this limitation doesn't make sense - just let me decide what I want, as always.

BTW, Evernote is awesome

Regards,

Andrzej

[Owyn 457]

You can still use project tags. You just need an efficient and timely way to handle new projects.

e.g. You could create a tag "NewProject" which could be used pending assigning the actual project code.

[Owyn 457]

PS: Adding external tagging is probably a non-trivial technical problem for Evernote. Each tag has a uid (unique identifier) in the user database which shares the notebook. The current limitation ensures that any tags assigned by linked users have a valid uid in the original database.

[gregorioandador 3]

Sorry I really don't understand the logic behind not allowing non-owners of shared notebooks to add tags when the user is given the rights to modify. I could see an additional level of allowing/disallowing tag updates.

Allowing these changes is the point of collaboration. When sharing with modification rights to other users a notebook no longer really belongs to any one user though on the technical side it certainly does.

Not allowing updates to tags is very limiting in a collabortion setting where from the users perspective ownership does not matter. The user should not have to contact the owner of the folder to add a tag for them. The beauty of tags is that they don't have to be known in advance. Asking the owner to add tags in advance is not a solution.

PLEASE reconsider your position on this feature.

Thank you!

[jbignert 473]

Thanks for the feedback. We will consider this in the future.

[Heleneofk 0]

A bigger problem for me is that the tags in the shared notebook lose their hierarchy (they appear in a giant, alphabetical one-level list).

I've been presuming this a bug or something which will be implemented soon....?

In my case the tags do not appear at all on the left side in shared notebooks. Anyone else with the same problem?

[TravelWriterEditorGuy 2]

I know this thread is kind of dormant, but put me down for an extra-large order of Editable Tags by Shared Notebook Users. I am running an Evernote group for my writing team and the ability for them to create tags would make things much easier for all of us. I don't quite get the rationale stated above; I'd rather occasionally winnow out redundant tags than have to create all of them myself.

[Owyn 457]

I know this thread is kind of dormant, but put me down for an extra-large order of Editable Tags by Shared Notebook Users. I am running an Evernote group for my writing team and the ability for them to create tags would make things much easier for all of us. I don't quite get the rationale stated above; I'd rather occasionally winnow out redundant tags than have to create all of them myself.

The technical reasons for the limitation are unlikely to change soon.

Best current workaround is to develop procedures whereby the owner of the shared notebook (I assume that is yourself) can quickly honour requests for new tags.

An alternative is to use keywords in the note title or body. This avoids the whole tag issue completely.

[Brendan 17]

You can apply existing tags (i.e. tags that the owner has already applied to at least one note in that notebook). If you want to make a big pool of tags available to your "guests", then just use that tag on one or more notes.

PS: Adding external tagging is probably a non-trivial technical problem for Evernote. Each tag has a uid (unique identifier) in the user database which shares the notebook. The current limitation ensures that any tags assigned by linked users have a valid uid in the original database.

If the reason for disallowing guests from creating tags in to ensure unique id's, evernote could preallocate a bunch (let say 100) tag ids uids when the notebook is shared. Guests could then create up to 100 tags, but then a resync with the notebook owner would be required to refresh the pool of uids.

If evernote allowed our guests to rename tags, then we could do the hack ourselves by creating "z spare tag 1" -> "z spare tag 100", then when a guest needed a new tag they just renamed one of the spare tags.

This would make sharing in Evernote more usable and fun.

[danroot 3]

Ditto for wanting a better UX on this. I somewhat understand the technical reasons, but Evernote team is so awesome, I'm sure they can address this in an elegant way. Here is your user story: As a small team, we would like to share a notebook in a way that lets everybody on the team tag notes, so that the person who shared the notebook doesn't have to do all the tagging.

One possible way to work this would be to add a permission level. Currently, it's read, modify. Maybe read, modify, and 'full', where 'full' would allow the user to tag and any other "special" tasks. Honestly, though, I tend to agree with the user who says "If I share a notebook, I generally trust the person not to pollute my tags.

[alexhager 0]

I agree, I would prefer if invited users could add their own tags responsefully! As this kind of feedback has been around for a while, may I refesh the question: is it possible/probable that there will be "improvement" in the near future? There have been some good suggestions among the last comments imho. For instance, as has been said, different trust levels would be great (also a level to let guests modify or add notes, but prevent them from deleting any!).

Technically, I don't know what might be possible...

[braver 4]

Please add me for an order of Extra Large Creatable Tags in a Shared Notebook. This must in fact be a configurable feature. In addition, the second checkbox must read, "Create tags in the original tag space of the owner" -- by default have the namespace for tags be a new one. I'm sure Sergei Pachikov would approve! Heck I'll ask him.

[Nota Bene 0]

You can apply existing tags (i.e. tags that the owner has already applied to at least one note in that notebook). If you want to make a big pool of tags available to your "guests", then just use that tag on one or more notes.

I can't get those tags available for the others that I share my notebook to.  Neither by adding all tags to one note nor adding one tag to several different notes. I get one of the tags available but not all of them.  In a couple of older shared notebooks I have several tags however (without knowing about this restriction) so there it seems that I managed to propagate more tags to the other users. I have tried to synchronize several times as well as restarting Evernote.

[scottyheflin 2]

As a new premium user (but a EN fan for a year or better) I concur with many comments herein about Tags and Shared Notebooks.

 

It would be an incredibly wonderful and helpful feature for those with whom I share a notebook to see the same tag GROUPS or STRUCTURE that I have setup in that book rather than the current alpha sort (nothing grouped) tags they see. 

- to be truly effective, they should see all that I do for team collaboration.

 

I also agree with others that allowing the creation of tags by those sharing my notebook could be helpful as well. Perhaps that's another level of security so that some of us that want others to have that right may while others might not.

 

I implore the EV team and leadership to add this feature...if you did I would upgrade several other people in my company to premium without hesitation.

 

Respectfully,

  Scott

[Miguel-S 2]

I agree, this is a big limitation. 

 

I just hired an executive assistant and I'm sharing some notebooks with her to almost fully manage. This causes a big problem in our workflow and management of the notes. 

 

Evernote, please reconsider this feature, it really seems like a must have... 

[BrandonG 2]

Completed agree with Miguel-S.  My wife and I use a Shared notebook, and it would be INCREDIBLY USEFUL for both of us to create tags within the Shared Notebook.  Please, please, please consider adding this feature for an upcoming update.

 

Thank you,

Brandon

[Nathan T 58]

Please add me for an order of Extra Large Creatable Tags in a Shared Notebook. This must in fact be a configurable feature. In addition, the second checkbox must read, "Create tags in the original tag space of the owner" -- by default have the namespace for tags be a new one. I'm sure Sergei Pachikov would approve! Heck I'll ask him.

 

From my point of view, this comment is the key to the whole issue.  If tags for shared notebooks were automatically placed in their own distinct namespace by default it would solve the problem of tag pollution, removing the motivation behind the current limitation.  Plus, it would really improve the tag auto-complete experience (both in the main programs and in things like the clipper), since if this option were chosen, those shared notebook tags could be suggested for autocomplete only if that notebook was selected.  (And so you could feel free to create a large number of tags, which is often valuable for shared (read: work) notebooks, without worrying about bogging down your personal tagging process.)

 

In the meantime, a workaround to that problem is to add a unique prefix character like % or ^ to all tags in a given shared notebook.  If you have many shared notebooks, you can use the same prefix character for all, followed by the notebook name.  Another option if you decide to go the route of using keywords instead of tags is to keep a master 'keywords' note listing all your 'official' keywords in whatever structure you prefer.  Of course, these sorts of manual processes are more prone to error.

 

[braver 4]

The fact that it takes Evernote ever so long to do anything about a key semantic feature like this, while rolling out numerous UI polishings, shows a serious gap in communication channels from the forums to the management, or in engineering.  Guys, own up and provide a detailed answer!  With ETAs, preferably.  A Q4 2014 is a valid answer; silence is not.  (Although, as @DEVOPS_BORAT used to say, Q4 means "never".)   Is it getting on the roadmap?  Are you becoming a collaborative tool ever or do we have to switch for that purpose?

[jefito 5,598]

The fact that it takes Evernote ever so long to do anything about a key semantic feature like this, while rolling out numerous UI polishings, shows a serious gap in communication channels from the forums to the management, or in engineering.  Guys, own up and provide a detailed answer!  With ETAs, preferably.  A Q4 2014 is a valid answer; silence is not.  (Although, as @DEVOPS_BORAT used to say, Q4 means "never".)   Is it getting on the roadmap?  Are you becoming a collaborative tool ever or do we have to switch for that purpose?

As the Evernote staff constantly say, they do not give out product/feature roadmaps or timeframes, by company policy. Moreover, this is a user forum, and though the forums are read by Evernote staff, but they don't respond to every issue/request. Sometimes you get hints about certain directions/features, but I wouldn't expect it.

[Tim S 0]

I understand the limitations of shared users not being able to create tags for my notebooks, however my main issue is that on the iPhone, a shared user cannot search tags.

In the 'tags' tab on the shared users iphone app, it does not show up any of my created tags, however under info on each note you can see what tags they have.

am i missing something here?

[mores 1]

+1 for allowing visitors to add tags.

[Diana47 1]

My colleague and consider this a significant limitation. I agree with the others that once I grant permission to add notes, limiting her ability to tag them is very unhelpful. We are using Evernote to track papers for a course. She is the one adding papers, but I created the notebook so I'm the only one who can add tags. The only solution seems to be to start over and have her create the notebook and the tag list. pfft. 

[entirely 0]

I just wanted to chime in to say that I agree with several here that allowing tags to be added by Shared Notebook Users should be something I can switch on and off, with the default being as it is rather than no option to allow. It's a significant factor in teamwork issues for me and the two people I work with most, my personal assistant and husband.

[Roginator 3]

I don't think anyone from Evernote has mentioned any technical reasons for not doing this have they? Assigning a UID should not be that much of a problem - even if there are asynchronous issues. It's more of a UX decision - and I think it's a bad one. If the guest has access to add, delete and edit notes then why not tags too? Doesn't make sense.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I don't think anyone from Evernote has mentioned any technical reasons for not doing this have they? Assigning a UID should not be that much of a problem - even if there are asynchronous issues. It's more of a UX decision - and I think it's a bad one. If the guest has access to add, delete and edit notes then why not tags too? Doesn't make sense.

Evernote does not typically comment on why something is the way it is or isn't. It could be a conscious choice or simply a matter of other things having a higher priority.

[jefito 5,598]

I don't think anyone from Evernote has mentioned any technical reasons for not doing this have they? Assigning a UID should not be that much of a problem - even if there are asynchronous issues. It's more of a UX decision - and I think it's a bad one. If the guest has access to add, delete and edit notes then why not tags too? Doesn't make sense.

The comments by Dave Engberg above suggest that it's a UX choice, not a technical difficulty.

[SemperChris 2]

I have read this thread in detail, but the "work-around" mentioned by others doesn't seem to work for me...

 

-  I own the notebook called "Documents"

-  I shared this notebook with my wife

-  I tagged several documents in this notebook

-  None of these tags are available to my wife to tag additional notes with.  

-  Even if she types the tag name perfectly (it does not auto-complete any of the tags like it does for me) it still gives her the warning that she cannot create tags that don't already exist in the notebook.

-  She can go to view -> Tags and see all the tags that I have created, click on a particular tag, and see the notes that I assigned that tag.

 

I agree with everyone else that creating new tags for a notebook should be a permissions option just like assigning viewing or modifying, but right now I just want to get it to work as it's intended.  I want her to be able to assign tags I have already created.  Any ideas why it wouldn't work?

[daudaxx 8]

+1 for allowing visitors to add tags.

[mores 1]

I have read this thread in detail, but the "work-around" mentioned by others doesn't seem to work for me...

 

-  I own the notebook called "Documents"

-  I shared this notebook with my wife

-  I tagged several documents in this notebook

-  None of these tags are available to my wife to tag additional notes with.  

-  Even if she types the tag name perfectly (it does not auto-complete any of the tags like it does for me) it still gives her the warning that she cannot create tags that don't already exist in the notebook.

-  She can go to view -> Tags and see all the tags that I have created, click on a particular tag, and see the notes that I assigned that tag.

 

I agree with everyone else that creating new tags for a notebook should be a permissions option just like assigning viewing or modifying, but right now I just want to get it to work as it's intended.  I want her to be able to assign tags I have already created.  Any ideas why it wouldn't work?

 

What workaround are you referring to?

With me and my wife it seems to work. I add a note in *her* notebook, and add tags that are available in *that* notebook.

I can't use her tags in my notebook, or rather, I just create them new, for my notebooks.

[SemperChris 2]

I have read this thread in detail, but the "work-around" mentioned by others doesn't seem to work for me...

 

-  I own the notebook called "Documents"

-  I shared this notebook with my wife

-  I tagged several documents in this notebook

-  None of these tags are available to my wife to tag additional notes with.  

-  Even if she types the tag name perfectly (it does not auto-complete any of the tags like it does for me) it still gives her the warning that she cannot create tags that don't already exist in the notebook.

-  She can go to view -> Tags and see all the tags that I have created, click on a particular tag, and see the notes that I assigned that tag.

 

I agree with everyone else that creating new tags for a notebook should be a permissions option just like assigning viewing or modifying, but right now I just want to get it to work as it's intended.  I want her to be able to assign tags I have already created.  Any ideas why it wouldn't work?

 

What workaround are you referring to?

With me and my wife it seems to work. I add a note in *her* notebook, and add tags that are available in *that* notebook.

I can't use her tags in my notebook, or rather, I just create them new, for my notebooks.

I have discovered that it appears to be a bug in the OSX version as I can do what you stated, use tags that the owner of the notebook has previously used, in the web version but the OSX app gives me an error and refuses to let any guest assign tags, regardless if they have been used by the owner already.

[Pansai 0]

I understand that guests in shared notebooks are only allowed to use tags that have already been used in that notebook, and I think that it's perfect that way (I've explained that below.).

 

But I'm still having a lot of trouble with it. I shared some notebooks with my assistant, the notebooks each contain a note with all the allowed tags. It's a fresh installation of the most recent Evernote windows client. At first tagging didn't work at all. I then recreated some of the tags. And they suddenly worked. But not in all notes. Something seems to be fairly unstable.

Any suggestions, fixes or ideas anybody?

 

 

And as promised above: Let me explain why I completely agree with the decision of Evernote NOT to let guests add new tags.

 

Tagging seems to be widely misunderstood and confused with the use of keywords. Just put certain keywords in the note if you want the note to appear in search results for these keywords although they do not exist in the note content.

 

Tags and a tag structure should be strategically planned to allow grouping of notes that span multiple notebooks.

 

For example: Having a tag "invoice" to mark scanned invoices allows you to display all those invoices in contrast to searching for the keyword "invoice" which might display a wide variety of notes containing that word.

 

Considering what I stated above, it just doesn't make sense to have somebody just add tags to shared notes. New tags should be planned and discussed with the whole team. Otherwise the whole idea of tagging becomes pretty much useless.

 

And, please, I do not mean to start a flamewar... I just hope to inspire some of you think about their use of tags and may get even more use out of Evernote. And I'll happily offer more advice on how to get the most out of tagging.

[TedETGbiz 2]

Is all the functionality discussed here for shared tagging available in the business version of Evernote?  Is there anything there like shared tagging?

[braver 4]

I'd like Phil to personally attend to this thread.  Clearly the engineering was saying for years that tagging architecture is deficient, and creating tag contexts, required for safe tag sharing, is all but impossible.  It would be great to understand whether that's still the case and whether product and engineering folks are communicating with the business users and Evernote management clearly about this feature.

[atlas100 0]

Please add another level of permissions on shared notebooks to allow guests to tag!

[jefito 5,598]

Please add another level of permissions on shared notebooks to allow guests to tag!

As far as I know, if you have write permissions on a shared notebook, then you can tag notes in that notebook, but only with tags that are already being used in that notebook.

[Antagonist 0]

I have the same problem. We are three users who share the same notebook, but sometimes some of us can't use add tags to notes even if the tags are already used in the notebook.

[Antagonist 0]

...however the same user who cannot add the tag from the Evernote program can still do it in the web interface (logged in to the same account).

[jefito 5,598]

...however the same user who cannot add the tag from the Evernote program can still do it in the web interface (logged in to the same account).

Please see a suggestion that I wrote for you in the other topic that you raised the same issue.

[daudaxx 8]

I noticed that a user cannot add new tags to a shared note, but he can delete them!!

I hardly can understand this odd logic, I'm sorry.

 

Daniele

[PeppyPilotGirl 1]

I have read this thread in detail, but the "work-around" mentioned by others doesn't seem to work for me...

 

-  I own the notebook called "Documents"

-  I shared this notebook with my wife

-  I tagged several documents in this notebook

-  None of these tags are available to my wife to tag additional notes with.  

-  Even if she types the tag name perfectly (it does not auto-complete any of the tags like it does for me) it still gives her the warning that she cannot create tags that don't already exist in the notebook.

-  She can go to view -> Tags and see all the tags that I have created, click on a particular tag, and see the notes that I assigned that tag.

 

I agree with everyone else that creating new tags for a notebook should be a permissions option just like assigning viewing or modifying, but right now I just want to get it to work as it's intended.  I want her to be able to assign tags I have already created.  Any ideas why it wouldn't work?

 

We're having exactly this problem too.

[Ken Miller 1]

I can't believe this thread has been open for three years and Evernote keeps giving the same non-response.  This should be configurable.  I can understand why you would not want to allow creating new tags by default, but when it's useful it's REALLY useful.  Here's the use case, if you're still listening.  I send receipts to my bookkeeper.  She scans them in and posts them to evernote.  Then, I'd like her to tag them by date, by type, and by sender.  If I have to anticipate every tag that might be needed, that really puts a crimp in the whole process.  I upgraded to premium just so I could do this, and I was quite surprised at this restriction.  When I came here and learned that you've known people wanted this for years, I became pissed off, to be honest.  

[jefito 5,598]

The behavior is by design (see the second post in the topic, by Dave Engberg, who is the company CTO). Since Evernote haven't changed their stance on this design choice, they probably don't seem inclined to post about it any more. I'm sure that they realize that it would be useful to some users. Since your tag usage is a shared vocabulary with your bookkeeper, and the tags are important to both of you, it shouldn't be too hard to come to a tag set that covers most of your needs, with the occasional "hey, I need this tag 'xyz'", "OK, I've added it" exchange required. Alternatively, you might try to come up with some scheme whereby you can categorize/filter these notes via a special title or line in the note -- other folks do this instead of using tags.

 

Not sure where you got the idea that the premium service had this capability, but if it's the only reason that you upgraded, then you should open a support request and drop back to the free service.

[braver 4]

Jeff, your reply is really disappointing for three reasons.

 

1.  Lack of shared tags features is not a design decision -- it is a limitation of an implementation from many years ago.  The amount of requests would mean, in most other companies, that resources would be allocated and work done to address what customers want.  None of that was reported.

 

2.  An occasional "hey" is not how shared social systems engineered well operate.  Facebook and Twitter do not rely on a "hey" channel, nor does Amazon or Google.  

 

3.  If you bill yourself as an "evangelist", your first duty is to the customers, not the mothership.  You must collect the feedback and bring it to the attention of the management, not guess why it's not posting about things anymore.

 

Given this stonewalling, I'm using all available channels to organize users to demand a change on this.  I suggest anyone who wants this uses their Twitter to the fullest to make sure this is the case.  Note that I'm still a heavy Evernote user and even bought almost everything from the marketplace, so I believe this is a very useful form of partnership with a company to reply to every @evernote tweet with a reminder to build great features.

 

A+

[jefito 5,598]

Jeff, your reply is really disappointing for three reasons.

 

1.  Lack of shared tags features is not a design decision -- it is a limitation of an implementation from many years ago.  The amount of requests would mean, in most other companies, that resources would be allocated and work done to address what customers want.  None of that was reported.

"limitation of an implementation from many years ago": you have a quote that backs that up? Dave E's quote indicates that it is indeed a design choice.

 

2.  An occasional "hey" is not how shared social systems engineered well operate.  Facebook and Twitter do not rely on a "hey" channel, nor does Amazon or Google.

This is known in the trade as a "workaround"; in this case a workaround to what is still apparently a design choice, barring evidence to the contrary.

 

3.  If you bill yourself as an "evangelist", your first duty is to the customers, not the mothership.  You must collect the feedback and bring it to the attention of the management, not guess why it's not posting about things anymore.

Incorrect: I have no duties to collect/report to management (it is my understanding that Evernote staff do read all posts). I am not an employee, nor am I paid. "Evangelist" is an Evernote-given title, and I do aim to help out users with their problems (it also entails being a moderator); sometimes that entails pointing out Evernote's actual statements on the issue at hand.

 

Given this stonewalling, I'm using all available channels to organize users to demand a change on this.  I suggest anyone who wants this uses their Twitter to the fullest to make sure this is the case.  Note that I'm still a heavy Evernote user and even bought almost everything from the marketplace, so I believe this is a very useful form of partnership with a company to reply to every @evernote tweet with a reminder to build great features.

Go for it.

[jtcrawfo 0]

I am a relatively new user, and am having many of the same problems. Mine seems to be worse, though. I share notebooks with my wife for receipts, among other things. She has been unable to add a particular tag with the same problem everyone else is having. However the tags are on the notes if you look at the notes when logged in my account. I log back into her account and the tags are not there.

What is wrong? I am trying to use the workaround, but still not able to do a simple thing. It is very frustrating.

[Jon Parker 0]

As a feature request, I would like to see global shared tags. You may want to follow what you have done with notebooks and have both shared and local only. They would need to be unique names. This would be a great feature. In the current state, tags are only useful for single user/login environments, and non-existent in shared environments which is one of evernotes main strengths

Jp

[jefito 5,598]

As a feature request, I would like to see global shared tags. You may want to follow what you have done with notebooks and have both shared and local only. They would need to be unique names. This would be a great feature. In the current state, tags are only useful for single user/login environments, and non-existent in shared environments which is one of evernotes main strengths

In the current world, you can have identically named tags in shared notebooks, and they'll work, but they're handled awkwardly in at least some of the clients (the Windows client is where I see this the most, as that's what I use most of all.

 

For example, I have a "_Todo" tag in both my work and personal accounts, and share notebooks back and forth between them A search on "tag:_Todo" will successfully find notes from wither account, which is how I feel it should work: there is no way to specify a tag from a different account in the search language, at least at this point in time, so it would be crazy-making if it worked any other way.

 

On the other hand, the UI insists on maintaining separate instances of the two tags in most places (the tag panel, the tags screen, Assign Tags dialog, the tag selector in the search control, and probably other places). Sometimes they're disambiguated with the account name if the shared account they come from, sometimes note. In the tag tree, you see two versions, and if you click on one, the other is automatically selected as well. It's all a little weird and clumsily handled: they had to jump through some hoops to build in the logic to do the extra work, but in the end, there's no functional difference in the outcomes: there no way to specify the account name of a tag in the search language.

 

Anyways, that's a long way of saying that you *can* have shared identically-named tags (I don't know about the 'global' bit; I'm not even sure I know what that means: all tags must come from some account, after all, and that's not global). There's no notion of private (or local tags), and I don't think that there needs to be; I would just prefer that shared identical tags be handled a little more elegantly.

[mckowski 1]

A friend shared one of his folders with me, and now I have 9 of his TAG's appearing in my TAG list. I'm not able to delete them on my PC. I asked him to unshare the folder to see if I can get rid of his TAGs. I was able to remove TAGs and Folder from iPhone and iPad but not the TAGs from my PC directory. Folder is gone from my PC version but when I click on the one of his TAGs it says "Sorry no notes to display" then under that it says "View all notes" (highlighted like a link) which takes me to all his notes from the Folder that he stopped sharing no longer shows up in my directory but the are all still there.

[MobilePw 0]

A friend shared one of his folders with me, and now I have 9 of his TAG's appearing in my TAG list. I'm not able to delete them on my PC. I asked him to unshare the folder to see if I can get rid of his TAGs. I was able to remove TAGs and Folder from iPhone and iPad but not the TAGs from my PC directory. Folder is gone from my PC version but when I click on the one of his TAGs it says "Sorry no notes to display" then under that it says "View all notes" (highlighted like a link) which takes me to all his notes from the Folder that he stopped sharing no longer shows up in my directory but the are all still there.

I have exactly the same issue and like many on these threads its cluttering my PC tag list in the left hand column.  Please try to address this Evernote.  Its been going on a long time now 

[nicolasrk 1]

So. If I share a notebook with somebody and give them modifying rights, they can create, write, edit and even DELETE notes... but they can't create tags? Absolutely ridiculous. Any news on this? 

[jefito 5,598]

So. If I share a notebook with somebody and give them modifying rights, they can create, write, edit and even DELETE notes... but they can't create tags? Absolutely ridiculous. Any news on this? 

That's correct, and that's by design (rationale give by the "Best Answer" above).

[natascha 0]

It would be cool to have several options (if users wish to use it this way) - and I get this may be a total pain from an IT perspective to actually set up.

 

1.  Creator of notebook can grant tagging privileges to users in shared notebooks.  This is separated privilege from editing/deleting.

2.  To limit clutter in the creator's other notebooks from members, have Tags for shared notebooks limited to that notebook (i.e concept of shared tags).  

3.  Add a search check box for global searches to "exclude shared notebooks" (Default to be to include them) when searching via tags.

4.  Creator can delete / edit shared tags.  Members can add tags, but not edit or delete them (mainly so someone can maintain a sense of order).

5.  Creator can delegate one additional member with full admin privileges who can delete / edit shared notebook tags.

 

Does that rambling make any sense?

[JeffreyC 66]

+1

 

I was surprised today when I ran into this.  My programmers have "Can Edit" privileges in the notebook, but I didn't believe them when they could not tag.

 

I jumped on a GoToMeeting and saw it with my own eyes - in the Web version, it's grayed out.

 

I want them to be able to select my "Completed" tag.

[jefito 5,598]

+1

 

I was surprised today when I ran into this.  My programmers have "Can Edit" privileges in the notebook, but I didn't believe them when they could not tag.

 

I jumped on a GoToMeeting and saw it with my own eyes - in the Web version, it's grayed out.

 

I want them to be able to select my "Completed" tag.

They should be able to tag with existing tags in the shared notebook (possibly account). I do this with some regularity, using my Windows clients (can't testify off the top of my head for the web client, but the newer of them is know to be feature-incomplete).

 

What they cannot do is create new tags in the shared account.

[JeffreyC 66]

I saw it with my own eyes.

My programmer was logged into his Evernote account, using the web version.

He can edit notes in the notebook I shared with him, but the tag icon is grayed out and will not let him add * any * tags.

[jefito 5,598]

As I say, the web version may be different, particularly the web beta (you didn't specify which one you were referring to). The Windows client should work fine, and I work in this scenario a lot.

 

In particular, if you're having problems with the web beta, you should probably post it in the web beta subforum elsewhere on the site.

[monkaiboy 1]

Wow, I'm pretty blown away by this limitation. Drastically reduces the usefulness of the shared notebook feature. 

 

If it's a technical limit, fine, I can understand it, although by now it should be fixable. But by design? Sorry, not impressed. 

[iccredman 0]

I'm having trouble deleting shared tags.

 

My sister duplicated my tag structure in a shared notebook; now I see all my tags and her tags.  Example @home and @home(mysister'scompanyname).  I cannot delete, rename or move these tags, I can only move to favorites.  My sister deleted these tags from her account but they still appear in my account.  

 

What do I do to delete or move these polluting shared tags?

 

Thanks, Matt

[jefito 5,598]

I'm having trouble deleting shared tags.

 

My sister duplicated my tag structure in a shared notebook; now I see all my tags and her tags.  Example @home and @home(mysister'scompanyname).  I cannot delete, rename or move these tags, I can only move to favorites.  My sister deleted these tags from her account but they still appear in my account.  

 

What do I do to delete or move these polluting shared tags?

 

Thanks, Matt

If you're on the Windows client, you can try the following:

* In Evernote hold down the Ctrl key, and click on the Help menu item

* At the bottom of the Help menu, you should see some special new entries; these are intended for customer support use

* Select "Delete Unused Linked Tags"

 

That should do it; you may need to sync, and / or shut down Evernote and restart -- I can't remember. I did this once, not too long ago, and it worked for me. I'd recommend making sure that you are synced and backed up before doing this, just to be on the safe side.

[mark@b 1]

It would be cool to have several options (if users wish to use it this way) - and I get this may be a total pain from an IT perspective to actually set up.

 

1.  Creator of notebook can grant tagging privileges to users in shared notebooks.  This is separated privilege from editing/deleting.

2.  To limit clutter in the creator's other notebooks from members, have Tags for shared notebooks limited to that notebook (i.e concept of shared tags).  

3.  Add a search check box for global searches to "exclude shared notebooks" (Default to be to include them) when searching via tags.

4.  Creator can delete / edit shared tags.  Members can add tags, but not edit or delete them (mainly so someone can maintain a sense of order).

5.  Creator can delegate one additional member with full admin privileges who can delete / edit shared notebook tags.

 

Does that rambling make any sense?

 

Makes sense to me! Such a simple thing to do and even with four years of complaints, there are no alternatives. Something needs to change. At least let the creator have an option to declare a notebook open to other editors or declare other admins. The creator may be someone completely unrelated to actual users, it doesn't make sense that we need to bug them every time we want to create a tag. 

 

Maybe this is a Business feature, but these are pretty common sense and should be available to all.

[themadmax 3]

This is starting to get frustrating.  I am sharing research and info with other students, which leads to a lot of shared notes and tags.  We use the work around that the owner creates tags for everyone, but here is where it gets painful: the tag hierarchy.  I have about 200 authors on about 35 topics in my 3000ish notes. When someone shares with me their research, I cannot add their tags into my hierarchy, and they cannot add mine to theirs, even if we have the same tags!  Instead I have a single layer list of unorganized tags with their user name appended on the end, and no way to pile them into categories like "author," "theory," or "research" etc.  If evernote is about sharing and collaboration, this seems like something that should be fixed. 

[Carlos Cadu 16]

...here is where it gets painful: the tag hierarchy.  I have about 200 authors on about 35 topics in my 3000ish notes. When someone shares with me their research, I cannot add their tags into my hierarchy, and they cannot add mine to theirs, even if we have the same tags!  Instead I have a single layer list of unorganized tags with their user name appended on the end, and no way to pile them into categories like "author," "theory," or "research" etc.  If evernote is about sharing and collaboration, this seems like something that should be fixed. 

 

I am facing the same problem collaborating is academic context with multiple authors. The very bad:

 

1. We set a list of same tag names and each of us implemented that list in each Evernote account. After sharing same notebook among us, the tags are duplicated with the different user id at the end of each tag name. What a mess!

 

2. I created a tag "Others" to assembly all tags which aren't mine under this hierarchy. Evernote doesn't allow even that. So the tag mess can't even be put under the carpet! 

 

Considering this scenario, so far Evernote tag system is being useless for our team for collaboration.

 

I would really appreciate any tip of users that may have found out workflows and workarounds to handle the mentioned tag scenario. 

 

Thanks!

[aaronpropst 3]

+1 for this being a very stupid limitation.  Evernote is a product I love, that has lots of potential, that fails in irritating ways just below the surface.

Other examples:  terrible change tracking / conflict resolution, the lack of a hierarchy in formatting.   All met with "no, you don't actually need that, silly user."  

 

Keep it up.  I'm gonna go see when my next premium renewal is and maybe explore your export features.

[gkearney 1]

What good are tags if you can't create tags? My wife and I created a shared notebook for issues surrounding the house and now find we can not add any tags because it started out life as a share notebook and so never had any tags. You might want to think about getting rid of the whole tag option in shared notbooks. I agree that the answer of "It's designed that way, so stop your compaining" is not a good costomer experience either.

[ryanopaz 5]

Stunning that this can't be fixed. This is not a design feature but a flaw, or rather a dictate from Evernote that we "must use the tool the way we want you to". 

 

One simple fix, no need to complicate things: 

 

"Share this notebook" with a check box option "allow tagging". 

 

That would make a lot of people happy. And I wouldn't guess that it is a huge technical hurdle. You guys at evernote might now like it, but your users seem to want it. Let us make a mess of our tags(mine are a mess anyways) if we want to. 

[Highimscott 3]

On 1/17/2011 at 3:22 PM, engberg said:

Guests can only add tags to a note if those tags are already part of that shared notebook. I.e. the tag must already be applied to at least one of the other notes in that notebook. This is to prevent a guest from polluting your account with dozens of tags that you need to find and delete on the left side.

 

It seems pretty clear from the number of posts requesting this functionality that UX suffers from this limitation. Would it not be reasonable to include this functionality as a configurable option? 

Making the assumption that users would benefit more from the absence of a feature based on a contrived use case doesn't seem like logical product design - Does Evernote at least have a story in their backlog to add this functionality or is this a lost cause?  

[Loster 1]

I would really like this feature added too.

Specifically when I share a notebook with a guest, that they then see any assigned tags in their tags list. This doesn't happen currently (at least on the web version).

I use Evernote to manage my virtual assistants - and I want to be able to quickly create a note on the go, tag it for a certain assistant task and for it then to appear in the tags list of my 2nd Evernote account (which the virtual assistant checks).

[DTLow 5,744]

23 minutes ago, Loster said:

Specifically when I share a notebook with a guest, that they then see any assigned tags in their tags list. This doesn't happen currently (at least on the web version).

It works on the Mac desktop platform - My carefully hierarchy of tags is messed up with the additional tags from notebooks that have been shared with me.

I like @ryanopaz's idea of "Share this notebook" with a check box option "allow tagging". 
This gives me the option because to be honest, usually I don't want people adding tags at random.
My notebook, my tag rules.
It's actually not a big issue, but I have to make sure there's a clearly defined set of tags.
I usually set them all on the first few notes which define the scope of the shared notebook.

[BenBogart 3]

This thread has been going on for a while, but I'll have to add my 2 cents.

The inability for others to tag my documents takes away nearly all benefit of evernote to me.  The idea that those tags need to already exist works sometimes, but what if we want to tag by a date in a scanned document?  It wouldn't save any time at all to add 365 tags for every year.

[auntie em 2]

On 1/16/2011 at 4:22 PM, engberg said:

Guests can only add tags to a note if those tags are already part of that shared notebook. I.e. the tag must already be applied to at least one of the other notes in that notebook. This is to prevent a guest from polluting your account with dozens of tags that you need to find and delete on the left side.

Booo....  My partner & I desperately need this feature.  We are realtors & we love evernote - we've been organizing our business files and also use for personal items.  We've discovered how useful tags are - a real game changer.  http://michaelhyatt.com/evernote-tags.html 

Please fix this issue!!  Hear the outcry!!  

[auntie em 2]

what if the tags were something only the individual saw - just like the notebooks?  I collaborate with my business partner, and our notebook organization is totaly different...  she has different names for her stacks...  Why can't the tags be the same?  

[Kousuke 3]

This is obviously a design flaw

It does not make any sense that for a user with edit privileges on a shared notebook could not create tags on notes that he or she has created??!!!

[Dani CS 4]

Basic user, considering becoming a paying customer. The only way I will become a paying customer is if the Evernote team acknowledges this issue and provides a fix.

When I share a notebook, I want the receiver to be able to do any action that I can do myself as a owner (with the single exception of revoking my access to the notebook).

[gazumped 12,049]

On 04/07/2016 at 1:45 PM, Dani CS said:

Basic user, considering becoming a paying customer. The only way I will become a paying customer is if the Evernote team acknowledges this issue and provides a fix.

When I share a notebook, I want the receiver to be able to do any action that I can do myself as a owner (with the single exception of revoking my access to the notebook).

Hi.  You may want to find a different sharing option then - Evernote protects account owners' interests by not allowing third parties to mess with their data unless the owner has invited them to do so by editing/ adding content - strictly using the account owner's existing notebooks and tags.  That's the way it works.  It's not a bug,  it's a designed-in protection.

[Dani CS 4]

On 11/7/2016 at 2:22 AM, gazumped said:

Hi.  You may want to find a different sharing option then - Evernote protects account owners' interests by not allowing third parties to mess with their data unless the owner has invited them to do so by editing/ adding content - strictly using the account owner's existing notebooks and tags.  That's the way it works.  It's not a bug,  it's a designed-in protection.

You misunderstood the point. In my scenario, there is no need to "protect account owner's interest," and there are no "third parties to mess with the data."

I simply need one notebook to have two owners, who can both do absolutely all possible actions on the notebook, including creating new tags for use in the notebook. This is the feature I am willing to pay for

[gazumped 12,049]

Sadly adapting the user protections to suit your relatively unusual case would 1) annoy a substantial percentage of the other users of shared accounts and 2) generate around $50 annually in returns.  There would seem to be a serious imbalance in the cost effectiveness of this feature...

[Highimscott 3]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

Sadly adapting the user protections to suit your relatively unusual case would 1) annoy a substantial percentage of the other users of shared accounts and 2) generate around $50 annually in returns.  There would seem to be a serious imbalance in the cost effectiveness of this feature...

I'm not sure you understand what we're asking for with regards to shared notebooks. First of all, 'user protections' are irrelevant here - the notebook has already been shared with the collaborator. Key word here is 'collaborator'. Granular permissions with regards to what collaborators can or can not do would be a welcome feature but at the very heart of what we're talking about is the fact that collaborators can, in only some circumstances, add tags to a shared notebook. A collaborator can add a tag to a notebook if that tag already exists in the owners collection of tags but a collaborator can not add a new tag that does not exists in the owners collection of tags. If a collaborator can easily delete the entire contents of a note that's been shared with them (what 'user protections'?), it seems more than reasonable that they should be able to add an additional tag/classification to said note.  

In addition to this shortcoming, shared notebooks exhibit disparate functionality across Evernote's products. The desktop application allows you to search for a note that's been shared to you based on a tag. The web portal and iOS applications do not support this - currently, as a collaborator, if you search for a tag that's been applied to a note that's been shared with you, no results are found in the web portal. 

Evernote is a productivity tool that's frequently used by people to collaborate. If Evernote is going to make the push for it's users to consolidate the number of devices they use or pay up for a premium subscription under the guise of improved functionality and additional investment in feature sets (go figure - moleskin notebooks and attache cases diverted focus from the main product) then I think that it's perfectly reasonable to expect a consistent experience across each Evernote product as well as a robust feature set that allows people to productively collaborate. 

Evernote's lack of willingness to address this bug - which has been brought up in multiple forum threads and support tickets - is a market opportunity for another player in this space. Currently, like many other people in this thread, I've invested a lot of time and effort curating notes and notebooks in Evernote. Unfortunately, there has yet to be a super attractive competitor to come along and motivate me to switch but that's changing. Notebook, Betternotes and Paper (in addition to many others) are all making a play in this space and it's only a matter of time until one of those guys has a mature enough product to warrant the switch. 

[gazumped 12,049]

@Highimscott Thanks for the explication,  but I was responding to a specific request that did not include any reference to most of the points you raise.  If you check around the forums you'll find plenty of collaboration threads where I and others have already said that Evernote isn't the best tool for real-time collaboration,  and that's because it wasn't designed to be. 

Evernote is not suffering from 'a bug' it's a personal app which allows some content to be shared with others for (if selected) limited editing.  Not allowing others to mess with the administration structure (ie tagging) seems like a reasonable protection for the personal user.  Yes,  others could alter or delete content - but that is recoverable from the Trash Notebook / Note History / personal backups / copies of shared notebooks.  Yes different apps have different 'features' - a legacy problem which Evernote is addressing.  And yes,  Evernote have put up their prices.  I must have missed the bit in business school where it says 'always offset price rises with better features'.

Basic, Plus and Premium are products for individuals,  with (after Basic) paid-for bandwidth that is subscribed by the user.  Evernote Business is the corporate version,  with more effective collaboration,  security features and lots more.

I agree with you that there are problems with tagging - hopefully there's a project somewhere looking into it. 

As you note,  there are dozens of competitors out there and if I needed in-house real-time collaboration for my staff I'd be working up a must-have feature list to help identify the top 5 contenders.  There are lots of successful swell-established players out there like Atlassian and the ones you mention.  They're generally much more expensive than Evernote - even at its new price - but in collaboration,  as in so much of life,  you generally gets what you pays for.

[Ferfey 0]

On 10/11/2011 at 4:02 PM, jbignert said:

Thanks for the feedback. We will consider this in the future.

We use Evernote in our clinic to share research articles among the providers. We have no way of tagging those notes with new tags. Please add this functionality back in.

[JP Hadden 0]

Hi,

So we have a large shared set of notes - which were originally organised by a previous co-worker.  Now he has left we can no longer tag anything with a new tag... this seems a bit poor to me.  Is it possible to transfer ownership etc?

JP

[DTLow 5,744]

21 hours ago, JP Hadden said:

So we have a large shared set of notes - which were originally organised by a previous co-worker.  Now he has left we can no longer tag anything with a new tag... this seems a bit poor to me.  Is it possible to transfer ownership etc?

There is no "transfer ownership etc" concept.
My solution would be to become the new owner by creating a new notebook, copying the notes, resharing the new notebook

[jefito 5,598]

22 hours ago, JP Hadden said:

So we have a large shared set of notes - which were originally organised by a previous co-worker.  Now he has left we can no longer tag anything with a new tag... this seems a bit poor to me.  Is it possible to transfer ownership etc?

If the account was set up by a co-worker for your work, then you need to get control of that account, or the notebooks they created. If they delete those notebooks, or any of the shared notes, or remove the share, then that's going to be too bad for you.

Assuming that you are using one of the desktop clients, you can save the shared notebooks by exporting them to Evernote format, and then importing them back into one of your own accounts. Do this on a notebook-by-notebook basis. Once you have then imported back in, you can share them around to your other co-workers, and you'll be able to create new tags again (under the same restrictions as previously: only the notebook's owner can create new tags). Once you've verifies that all is well, then you can stop syncing the old notebooks.

[tom_sharedassets 0]

Amazed this problem still hasn't been addressed! Surely all it would take would be a slight tweak to sharing options. Why not use google docs style:

- View only

- View and edit

- Full permissions

Add everyone in my office to the list of people who would not have chosen Evernote if we'd known about this flaw in advance

[gazumped 12,049]

Hi.  Can you give us a bit more information about the size of your group and what issues you and your colleagues have been having with tags?

[ooMikeoo 4]

Yeah, this tag issue is a problem. Can't add new tags to notes in the shared notebook. Can't add tags and then add it to the shared notebook. Tags are important and they are not working in shared notebooks. 

Keeping an eye for alternate solutions.