(Archived) HELP: Is Evernote the right tool for the job?

[synuge 0]

Hi All,

I'm trying to use Evernote as a research collaboration tool with several other people. The research is at a very early stage so we are clipping small fragments of content and posting them to a shared Notebook. This works brilliantly so far.

However, we then want to have discussion threads about what has been uploaded and here Evernote seems to fall down completely. Similarly I've managed to get alerts on my Mac version by installing Growl but there doesn't seem to be a notification feature for the iPhone version which again hampers collaboration as you would want to be notified of all changes to content.

Am I missing something - or is Evernote just not geared for this sort of thing. it would be a shame as the first part (clipping and sharing) works so well.

If not Evernote, does anyone one have suggestions for alternative tools they may have used?

Many thanks,

Simon

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi All,

I'm trying to use Evernote as a research collaboration tool with several other people. The research is at a very early stage so we are clipping small fragments of content and posting them to a shared Notebook. This works brilliantly so far.

However, we then want to have discussion threads about what has been uploaded and here Evernote seems to fall down completely. Similarly I've managed to get alerts on my Mac version by installing Growl but there doesn't seem to be a notification feature for the iPhone version which again hampers collaboration as you would want to be notified of all changes to content.

Am I missing something - or is Evernote just not geared for this sort of thing. it would be a shame as the first part (clipping and sharing) works so well.

If not Evernote, does anyone one have suggestions for alternative tools they may have used?

Many thanks,

Simon

hi simon. welcome to the forums.

i have not used evernote for collaboration, so i cannot provide a very knowledgable answer. however, i think if you are just concerned about being notified, then adding the url of the shared notebook to your rss feed ought to work, right?

[synuge 0]

Hi GrumpyMonkey - many thanks for your feedback.

I think that Collaboration would be a brilliant application of Evernote for unstructured knowledge (in the pre-Wiki phase) but I guess that you are confirming my fears.

I will look at the rss notification - this would certainly meet the notification requirement and fits nicely with other apps that I use.

I would probably still use Evernote for personal use because it is so slick and nice to use but I may have to go back to the drawing board for a collaboration tool.

Any other feedback or experiences from other users welcomed.

Thanks,

Simon

[synuge 0]

Me again! just trying the rss suggestion above but my shared notebook link (assuming that I'm accessing it via the browser) is something like:

https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#b=3f66b513-96ed-41d2-b41b-050adb3faa22&n=435248ae-7e57-4e4a-8fd3-d861e761e1f5

But this doesn't appear to be a valid rss link. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

I am not sure if I got the correct address from you there, and I haven't got any shared notebooks with colleagues to compare. My publicly shared notebook looks like this after the evernote.com part

/pub/mayo-christopher/public

Does yours look anything like this? The rest of the address should probably be cut off in order to make it work properly. But, here I am flailing around in unfamiliar waters. If you send a private message to lindsey at the link I posted above then she could probably give you far better advice.

[spg SCOTT 736]

The link you are using appears to be what you see when you view in the web client, which isn't what you need for this.

To find the link to your shared notebook: (Via the web client)

- Go to https://www.evernote.../Sharing.action

- Select the notebook and choose "Stop/Modify Sharing"

- Look for "Public URL" - This is the link that you need.

- add /feed to this for the RSS feed in your notebook.

So, using GrumpyMonkey's example of his notebook:

https://www.evernote...her/public/feed

Also, I'm not sure, but I think that you can only get RSS feeds for public notebooks, so if you have only shared with a couple of people, this may not work.

[gazumped 12,213]

Evernote for unstructured knowledge (in the pre-Wiki phase)

Evernote have said that they're looking into an Enterprise collaboration version, but until something better comes along I have to say (and have, several times) that Evernote - whilst I truly love the application and want to have it's babies* - there are a couple of areas in which it sucks like a famous brand of vacuum cleaner, and one of them (currently) is Collaboration on anything more than a one-to-many read-only sharing basis.

Having a good experience of Wikis, I'd say that this application is really suited to that solution and if you don;t want to go to the hassle of setting up your own home-grown Wiki on a local server, the cloud versions of various applications marketed by Bitnami might be what you need. Wikimatrix will give you an overview of the various Wiki flavours available, though my personal favourite is MediaWiki (Millions of Wikipedia users can't be wrong..).

Collecting and classifying dozens of different clips is exactly what a Wiki is good at, and RSS is built in to many flavours as well as a lot of research-applicable bells and whistles.

[/removes Wikiman hat]

*Anyone got The Guiness Book of Records on speed-dial?

[May 268]

Hi All,

I'm trying to use Evernote as a research collaboration tool with several other people. The research is at a very early stage so we are clipping small fragments of content and posting them to a shared Notebook. This works brilliantly so far.

However, we then want to have discussion threads about what has been uploaded and here Evernote seems to fall down completely.

...

Am I missing something - or is Evernote just not geared for this sort of thing. it would be a shame as the first part (clipping and sharing) works so well.

If not Evernote, does anyone one have suggestions for alternative tools they may have used?

Many thanks,

Simon

you might want to take a look at Springpad for this, i.e.

we then want to have discussion threads about what has been uploaded

Springpad is very similar to Evernote, both apps have pros and cons and I find Evernote to have better functionality in terms of basic/essential stuff such as searching/filtering and etc. but sharing and collaboration is one area in which Springpad is somewhat ahead of Evernote at the moment.

Springpad is **not** as advanced as wiki in terms of collaboration but it has clipping functionality similar to Evernote. So if you all you need is just an addition of discussions and notifications then it might work for this.

[Metrodon 2,188]

If you are looking at wikis then Confluence from Atlassian is pretty good too - you can host it or they will do it for you.

[synuge 0]

Thanks All - really appreciate the feedback.

I came across SpringNote (http://www.springnote.com) which is almost exactly what I had in mind. It isn't nearly as slick as Evernote, though, and its iPhone App is over 3 years old which makes me wonder whether it is being actively developed.

I think all that I would need adding to Evernote is (1) the ability to add comments to a Note and (2) configurable notifications that allowed you to be notified on any change within the shared Notebook/a specific note. you wouldn't have thought that would be difficult and even pull notifications from the client (desktop or iPhone) would be fine.

In the meantime I'll keep searching for that perfect blend of functionality

Cheers,

Simon

[synuge 0]

@May - thank you for the suggestion. SpringPad looks like it ticks all the boxes.

[akrde 19]

I am missing a note discussion feature in Evernote too, not usable as collaboration tool because of that. Perhaps they will add such a feature someday?