(Archived) Feature Request: Separate tag groups for separate notebooks

[cazzzidy 0]

Hello,

I am a premium user and utilize Evernote in a variety of capacities, including document filing, to-do lists, etc. Thank you for making great software.

But please provide an option to let us use separate tag groups for each notebooks. This would enable me to utilize a variety of tag structures without overwhelming any one notebooks tag list. Many, many users would appreciate this feature.

I would also request proper tag nesting. The current tag nesting structure is purely cosmetic and is of limited value.

And finally, if you offer nesting tags, please make them work on the iPhone app.

While I appreciate that you provide a very simple application with few options or preferences, I think you should consider giving us more freedom in our configuration. These limitations cause me to periodically look at competing products.

Thanks much

Cassidy

[peterfmartin 221]

EN have stated that they are not the least bit interested in developing EN for the corporate environment. I'm guessing they may have only added sharing so family members could share notes amongst themselves. "Collaboration Lite", if you will.

This is NOT consistent with the many Evernote Blogs recently published. Quite a few of them have been about how people mange team efforts using Evernote.

Here is one really good example: How Furniture Retailer, Aaron's, Inc., Built a Point - Evernote Blogcast

The impression I get from these blogs is that Evernote is advertising Evernote for business enviornment and for team collaboration.

Having said that, I think Evernote is missing some features that would greatly help team collaboration.

The blogs may well be indeed showing how people are using EN in business. However, my statement still stands, as indicated by Dave Engberg's statements in this fairly recent thread.

Isn't there a big difference between enterprise software, which Dave Engberg discussed in that post, and software that individuals or small businesses can integrate into their work, which is what JMichael correctly points out Evernote is advertising? (In addition to the blog, note the "Work with friends and colleagues" advertisement here.)

[Metrodon 2,188]

Metrodon, What other services would you recommend for "team notebooks"? I'd like to look into that.

BNF: It's a shame if EN is planning to NOT incorporate some greater flexibility to allow for shared notebooks. Not to preach but: we live in a connected world and a key element of that connectivity is the flexibility to customize. It seems like it should be fairly simple (and functional) to allow for users to specify tags by notebook...if they want to. That single tweak would allow for notebooks to be shared across all sorts of uses and users. Seems like a simple and elegant solution that would open up EN's subscriber base substantially. In any case, I'm in a bind because I want to use EN for personal use, like you do, and I also want to use it at work. But, I can't - not without experiencing some pretty comical and useless tag proliferation. I also want to be an Evangelist but this is the one impediment for me. Is anyone from EN out there listening?

There are loads out there, just one example is Confluence by Atlassian - a highly customisable and flexible wiki. Atlassian will even host it for you.

I really don't see Evernote as being anywhere near ready to use for collaboration with more than a couple of people and using it in a very simple way.

As the wonderful BnF has pointed out already, Evernote started off (is still?) really an application aimed at the individual. They have added some very basic collaboration and the expected (Facebook, twitter) integrations but when compared with an application that is really aimed at commercial enterprises then the limitations become very obvious.

[jefito 5,598]

My usual take is it's usually best to plan on what Evernote offers today, rather than hoping (and waiting) for the solution that you want. Lots of suggestions come in that would add undeniably useful functionality, but Evernote has to prioritize them, plus their own ideas, and make sure that they work across all of their offered clients.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Evernote is in this for the long haul, if you believe their marketing (see their CEO's comments on being 100-year company. I think that it's part of the Evangelist's Contract that we *do* believe them. ). I think that they understand, but they have consciously chosen to focus on personal usage first. I believe that eventually they will expand in a more business-specific ways, though I have no proof of that.

We can only hope. I don't think I can wait another 100 years. Waiting for the past 18 months has seemed like an eternity.

Then, as I said above, perhaps you need a tool that is specifically designed for collaboration. (shrug)

[KurtS 3]

Evernote is in this for the long haul, if you believe their marketing (see their CEO's comments on being 100-year company. I think that it's part of the Evangelist's Contract that we *do* believe them. ). I think that they understand, but they have consciously chosen to focus on personal usage first. I believe that eventually they will expand in a more business-specific ways, though I have no proof of that.

We can only hope. I don't think I can wait another 100 years. Waiting for the past 18 months has seemed like an eternity.

[jefito 5,598]

I'd like to look into that. BNF: It's a shame if EN is planning to NOT incorporate some greater flexibility to allow for shared notebooks. Not to preach but: we live in a connected world and a key element of that connectivity is the flexibility to customize.

Evernote is in this for the long haul, if you believe their marketing (see their CEO's comments on being 100-year company. I think that it's part of the Evangelist's Contract that we *do* believe them. ). I think that they understand, but they have consciously chosen to focus on personal usage first. I believe that eventually they will expand in a more business-specific ways, though I have no proof of that.

It seems like it should be fairly simple (and functional) to allow for users to specify tags by notebook...if they want to.

Yes, many things seem simple, but we don't actually know that, do we?

Is anyone from EN out there listening?

Evernote staff read all the posts. In particular, dlu, who posted above is one of them.

[KurtS 3]

Metrodon, What other services would you recommend for "team notebooks"? I'd like to look into that.

BNF: It's a shame if EN is planning to NOT incorporate some greater flexibility to allow for shared notebooks. Not to preach but: we live in a connected world and a key element of that connectivity is the flexibility to customize. It seems like it should be fairly simple (and functional) to allow for users to specify tags by notebook...if they want to. That single tweak would allow for notebooks to be shared across all sorts of uses and users. Seems like a simple and elegant solution that would open up EN's subscriber base substantially. In any case, I'm in a bind because I want to use EN for personal use, like you do, and I also want to use it at work. But, I can't - not without experiencing some pretty comical and useless tag proliferation. I also want to be an Evangelist but this is the one impediment for me. Is anyone from EN out there listening?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

So the distinction doesn't exist?

IDK. Based upon Dave's statement I quoted, I still think the sharing/collaboration tools they've offered are for smaller "projects" & if it works for your situation, then great. If it doesn't, then find a tool designed for the purpose. As far as I have seen, that won't be EN, at least in the near or not so near future.

1. Dave Engberg is no longer active in these forums
   

I have no idea why this has any bearing on the subject.

[Metrodon 2,188]

I use Evernote at work for sharing individual notebooks with individual users - for anything more complicated than that I think there are far better tools available.

I'm a huge Evernote fan, I'm an Evangelist even - but I'm not a big fan of fitting a square peg into a round hole.

[peterfmartin 221]

So the distinction doesn't exist?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Isn't there a big difference between enterprise software, which Dave Engberg discussed in that post, and software that individuals or small businesses can integrate into their work, which is what JMichael correctly points out Evernote is advertising? (In addition to the blog, note the "Work with friends and colleagues" advertisement here.)

Actually, JMiU just likes to pick fights with me. I see that has ported over to the new message board.

Per Dave Engberg, CTO of Evernote, (in the thread I linked to above): "Evernote is fundamentally a cloud service for individuals"

(That pesky word 'fundamental' again...)

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

Actually BNF, your quote is NOT recent, it is April 2011. Lot's have things have changed in Evernote since then:

1. Dave Engberg is no longer active in these forums
   
2. CEO Phil Libin has announced major changes in scope and plans for Evernote in the ETC (Evernote Trunk Conference).
   

I'm not saying that business, or better put, team collaboration is a major thrust of Evernote. I'm just saying that I would not rule it out at this point.

If Evernote had just a few more team collaboration features, it would be great for businesses and non-businesses alike.

Many people work in teams today, many of them non-business, small, informal, ad hoc.

Of course, a family is one form of a team. :-)

So there are lots of personal uses for teams today.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

EN have stated that they are not the least bit interested in developing EN for the corporate environment. I'm guessing they may have only added sharing so family members could share notes amongst themselves. "Collaboration Lite", if you will.

This is NOT consistent with the many Evernote Blogs recently published. Quite a few of them have been about how people mange team efforts using Evernote.

Here is one really good example: How Furniture Retailer, Aaron's, Inc., Built a Point - Evernote Blogcast

The impression I get from these blogs is that Evernote is advertising Evernote for business enviornment and for team collaboration.

Having said that, I think Evernote is missing some features that would greatly help team collaboration.

The blogs may well be indeed showing how people are using EN in business. However, my statement still stands, as indicated by Dave Engberg's statements in this fairly recent thread.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

EN have stated that they are not the least bit interested in developing EN for the corporate environment. I'm guessing they may have only added sharing so family members could share notes amongst themselves. "Collaboration Lite", if you will.

This is NOT consistent with the many Evernote Blogs recently published. Quite a few of them have been about how people mange team efforts using Evernote.

Here is one really good example: How Furniture Retailer, Aaron's, Inc., Built a Point - Evernote Blogcast

The impression I get from these blogs is that Evernote is advertising Evernote for business enviornment and for team collaboration.

Having said that, I think Evernote is missing some features that would greatly help team collaboration.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

These people probably aren't using shared notebooks in a business environment. Implementing this feature request could open up a huge market among business users (improved notebook sharing features - especially with a web clipping tool that could be used by any team user - would help too)..

EN have stated that they are not the least bit interested in developing EN for the corporate environment. I'm guessing they may have only added sharing so family members could share notes amongst themselves. "Collaboration Lite", if you will.

If you need a true collaboration tool, EN may not be the option for you. But as a personal repository/retrieval system for tons of information, EN cannot be matched, IMO.

[KurtS 3]

I would second the suggestion that Evernote provide separate tags for separate notebooks. I use a shared notebook with my team at work. The tags we use are strictly business related. I would love to also have a personal folder (for receipts, gift ideas, recipes and the like) but don't want to muddle-up my team's business notebook with tags like "Gifts for Mom" and "Tasty Recipes". I've heard various workarounds but would love to see EN implement a solution.

The standard responses I've seen to this request so far are:

1. "This is low priority - not many people really want or need this". My response: These people probably aren't using shared notebooks in a business environment. Implementing this feature request could open up a huge market among business users (improved notebook sharing features - especially with a web clipping tool that could be used by any team user - would help too).

2. "Use the 'Hide Unassigned Tags' feature". My response: That has a lot of drawbacks. One is that you can't establish a fixed set of tags for your team (some of which my be unused at the outset) and another is that you would still see all of the other "personal" tags when you use some of the Evernote features for assigning tags to new notes.

3. "Create a second Evernote account to keep your business and personal accounts separate". My response: This would cost a few extra bucks but I think its a very fair solution EXCEPT it appears that Evernote doesn't support two accounts with its desktop client and with its mobile apps (though I hope someone tells me I'm wrong about that). I've seen some workarounds mentioned here by Burger n Fries and some other evangelists but they all seem a bit clunky, especially for EN subscribers who often access info from mobile devices.

Maybe I just don't fully understand the features and I have, admittedly, only recently switched to a Mac computer so perhaps there is a feature to which I haven't yet been introduced. In any case, finding a solution is really important to me and as much as I absolutely love Evernote I must admit that I'm finding myself casting about the web to see if there is another young, smart and creative firm out there that can fill the void.

[cazzzidy 0]

Thanks for taking my feature request! I haven't spent much time on the forums, so I have no perspective but my own.

\My major request is that Evernote provide some basic options to users. I would personally like to have nesting tags and separate tags for separate notebooks. But I understand others don't. Seems like we could all live together if we had two check boxes in the preferences section.

[jefito 5,598]

-in desktop version; when users select a notebook - Evernote should only show tags available for that notebook. It does not make any sense when Evernote list a tag in a selected notebook, telling me that there are 3 items, and when I click on it it says there are no items. At least there should be an indicator indicating that the items belong to a different notebook.

Do you have the "Hide Unassigned Tags" setting enabled. If you do that, then you should get that tags only used in the notebook. Right click on the Tags header in the tag tree, and select "Hide Unassigned tags".

-it should be an easy affair adding group by NOTEBOOK-TAGS. This would be another option to view and organize the notes. Then users would have an choice.

Do you mean something like Outlook does with labels? That would be an big step; there's currently no group-by functionality in the various note views; it's currently only straight sort-by.

I totally agree that having to look through a bounce of tags that are not organized in any other way than alphabetic or by number of notes make no sense - well there are at least room for improvements.

Not quite sure what you're asking for here. You can organize tags in a tree. Works fine. What some people also want is that the search honor the parent/subtag relationships.

[kfugledal 0]

Well people can argument many ways about tags, but in my opinion Evernote could improve a lot if they;

-in desktop version; when users select a notebook - Evernote should only show tags available for that notebook. It does not make any sense when Evernote list a tag in a selected notebook, telling me that there are 3 items, and when I click on it it says there are no items. At least there should be an indicator indicating that the items belong to a different notebook.

-it should be an easy affair adding group by NOTEBOOK-TAGS. This would be another option to view and organize the notes. Then users would have an choice. I totally agree that having to look through a bounce of tags that are not organized in any other way than alphabetic or by number of notes make no sense - well there are at least room for improvements.

[jefito 5,598]

But please provide an option to let us use separate tag groups for each notebooks. This would enable me to utilize a variety of tag structures without overwhelming any one notebooks tag list. Many, many users would appreciate this feature.

I would also request proper tag nesting. The current tag nesting structure is purely cosmetic and is of limited value.

There is a great deal of discussion on both of these topics (the latter in particular); please feel free to search the forum for it. In truth, I tend to like tags as they are -- they're very flexible, and I prefer to not need to add another set of items that I need to keep track of. I have some doubts that "many, many" users really need this capability, at least not by my reading of the forum discussions anyways. I am also OK with retaining the current non-semantically hierarchical tag design, through I can see the benefit; instead, I once proposed some operations that would make it easier to construct tag hierarchies that are more than structural. On the whole, I don't have much need for that sort of thing, and indeed, the way that I use tags would be awkward were semantic hierarchies universally applied. But hey, that's just my take on the Evernote way...

[dlu 628]

Hi Cassidy,

Thanks for your post. Some of the things you've mentioned have been raised here before, but it is always good to hear the popular requests reenforced. I've noted these and I'll discuss it internally.

thanks again and have a good weekend!