Sharing Notebooks

[Stuart.P 0]

Hey there, just a newbie to Evernote and really enjoying it so far! I've got a couple quick questions for anybody out there who knows...

I've been looking at the notebook sharing functions and it sparked my interest for a possible work application. Basically I'm a free user at this point, but I'd love to start paying for the service if it would give me the functionality I'm looking for.

At work, I engage with several other managers on about twelve projects a year. During those projects, we always come up with various ways of keeping track of our to-do lists and marking them as "To-Do," "In progress," "Follow-up," and "Signed off" (or done). The most common way of doing this is by use of flipchart, but the idea of everyone being able to install evernote onto their cell phones and computers in order to keep track just sounds amazing to me. Especially being able to update between the phones or computers instantly, that's the kicker. I'd love to be able to sell this to the team, but I'd need a couple more details in order to see this happen.

1. When you share a notebook, is it viewable in the Evernote apps? (Can the people I share it with access the notebook via their phone/tablet app?)

2. If I went premium, would everyone else need premium also in order to modify the notebook, or just me?

3. Is there a good way of assigning priority, progress, responsibility, timeline, etc to notes (as a task management tool) while keeping all parameters completely optional?

I can think of some good uses for tags here - you could use tags easily for progress maintenance, responsibility assignment, etc. However, priority assignment and timeline management seem trickier to maintain with tag use. Unless you can search for tags identified as dates/times and look only for those before/after a certain timeline? Can the search function be used to sort priorities through tags? Doesn't seem as intuitive as some sort of inherent feature for these functions which I'm not seeing at this point.

I see the potential there? I guess I'm wondering if there's some whole new world out there when/if I switch to subscription service. Or perhaps there would be a better solution out there. Who's got some thoughts on the subject?

[jbenson2 2,147]

For a multi-user business, I'd say your project + task management requirements are pushing Evernote a bit too much to handle properly.

A dedicated corporate project management program would probably be better suited for your needs.

http://en.wikipedia....gement_software

[Stuart.P 0]

This is probably true. However, all of the project management software I have come across does so much more than our team would require of it. Paying for features that our team would never use seems to be in itself poor resource management. It's nice to be able to plan for the future and have processes in place to accommodate that growth, but because of a fairly regular turnover rate (a one-year promotion plan in the corporate structure) I wouldn't want to invest in most of those solutions. Also, many of the solutions there don't have a cell phone app component, which would be crucial to our team. I will continue to look into the various ones listed at the address provided, though, and thanks very much for the quick link!

Some of my questions still stand, however. How far could I take Evernote, and where would it fall short of my needs?

[jbenson2 2,147]

One of the weaknesses with Evernote is there is no Due Date, so you have to create clunky work-arounds for projects, meetings, appointments, or follow-ups that occur in the future. Over the past couple years, Evernote has mentioned they are working on a Due Date, but no joy yet.

Hopefully, some other folks will chime in with suggestions.

In the meantime, here are some links that might help with some of the concepts mentioned in your post.

Five Links

Discussion

#1 - Evernote and GTD

#2 - Advanced Topics

#3 - More Advanced Topics

#4 - Tying it all together

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

For a multi-user business, I'd say your project + task management requirements are pushing Evernote a bit too much to handle properly.

I pretty much agree with jbenson2. While you might be able to make it work using EN, you, and your team, will be fighting it at every step.

You will be dependent on each team member to manually enter key data into every note, without any prompts, data validation, or enforcement.

If you do a Google on "project management apps" I'm sure you find some simple ones that also have a mobile app as well.

In fact, you might start with your mobile phone, and search there for PM apps. Then see what the desktop ver looks like.

There are many PM apps that are fully web based.

Good luck.

[Stuart.P 0]

Just an FYI,

I've been looking around in the way JMichael suggested, from my phone. I came across something called Conqu, and that seems to be more what I was looking for. However, there's some features missing from it - it won't replace Evernote. I'm thinking of using them both together for my needs, it might just do the trick.

Thanks for your input, gentlemen! Very much appreciated.