Sharing and collaboration permissions

[Mr. Ruz 5]

Okay, so I'm not sure if I made a mistake or not in buying Evernote premium, but I wanted to figure out if it was going to work or not. And so it seems that it won't unless I'm missing something..

I just bought evernote premium for the purpose of sharing notebooks and notes. However, I want the person whom I am sharing with to have the same abilities as I do. That is to say, to move notes from one notebook to another, delete notes, have full permissions, etc...

Does she also have to purchase a premium account to do this? If so, that's okay because I'm willing to pay for a service that'll keep my notes secure. The information is sensitive so....

Any ideas or should I contact customer support for a refund? I hope I can stay with evenote.

Thanks!

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi and welcome to the Forums. You should be able to get a summary of sharing options from this post which will confirm that if you're the owner of a database, you alone have certain powers and can't share them. However, the same goes for your sharee, who can also have a database of their own. By copying notes between shared and owned notebooks you should be able to get a lot of the functionality you require. However Evernote is not, and has never claimed to be, a medium through which you can collaborate remotely.

[sswindon 0]

Hi

I disagree that Evernote "is not, and has never claimed to be, a medium through which you can collaborate remotely".  On the Evernote product page it states the following:

 

Work with friends and colleagues

Share your notes and collaborate on projects with friends, colleagues and classmates.

Seems pretty clear to me that it is claiming to be a collaboration tool unless I have missed something?

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi

I disagree that Evernote "is not, and has never claimed to be, a medium through which you can collaborate remotely".  On the Evernote product page it states the following:

 

Work with friends and colleagues

Share your notes and collaborate on projects with friends, colleagues and classmates.

Seems pretty clear to me that it is claiming to be a collaboration tool unless I have missed something?

 

I think it depends on how you define 'collaborate' - the clip above says 'share your notes';  it doesn't mention allowing colleagues to edit them or add new ones,  or to see changes in real time.  Evernote is always developing new features,  so it's dangerous to say 'never',  but unless you and your colleagues are fully aware of the sync delay and there's little chance of two people trying to edit the same note at the same time,  true collaborative working is not currently practical using Evernote.  If all you're looking for is a library of information to share with lots of viewers,  Evernote is ideal. 

 

Evernote Central has never to my knowledge promoted its collaboration skills for business use in more detail than the one-liner you quote - which in any event is advertising copy not technical spec.  If you have any ambitions in this direction I recommend careful due diligence.

[sswindon 0]

Thanks gazumped.

 

Whether it is advertising copy or not to my mind it is still a clear statement that Evernote enables users to collaborate on projects which strongly implies that it allows multiple users to work together on content.  As has been clarified to me on another thread Evernote doesn't even allow users to move notes into notebooks which have been shared with them which is an unbelievable limitation for a tool claiming to be a collaboration tool.  I strongly believe that the Evernote line on this is misleading and I suspect deliberately so.

[gazumped 11,652]

Everyone's entitled to their view,  but I don't see any profit in Evernote misleading anyone on this.  It's either a free product,  or one where you only have to buy the (inexpensive) paid version for one person to add an unlimited number shared users.  Anyone running a mission-critical service based on a free package should expect tears before breakfast.  When you pay for a commercial collaboration package your cash gets you service level minima,  support 24/7,  training and many more bells and whistles. 

 

Evernote is quite entitled to expect anyone wanting to use their software in anger to try it out before committing any vital operations to it - there are stories in the forums of people using Evernote for the first time to write a vital letter,  or record an essential meeting;  then being shocked when something goes wrong and they lost the content.  That's not an Evernote issue,  that's just new users being unfamiliar with the menus.  Same goes for any activity.  Whatever the use case,  I always recommend people try things out - with a friend or colleague if there's sharing going on - to find out the limitations for themselves,  before making the big announcement.  I used Evernote sporadically for a year or more before I got to the stage of accepting that it would do the job I needed it for - and I still keep regular local backups 'just in case'.  And I'm still learning new things (or being reminded of things I did know but have forgotten) from others posting in the forums.

[jefito 5,589]

Hi

I disagree that Evernote "is not, and has never claimed to be, a medium through which you can collaborate remotely".  On the Evernote product page it states the following:

 

Work with friends and colleagues

Share your notes and collaborate on projects with friends, colleagues and classmates.

Seems pretty clear to me that it is claiming to be a collaboration tool unless I have missed something?

As there is no single, "one true" definition of the term "collaboration tool", you're going to have to accept Evernote's statement as true, even if it doesn't match up to your expectations. The fact of the matter is that you certainly can "share notes and collaborate on projects" using Evernote, however, there's no Evernote statement as to ease of use or fitness for all collaboration tasks in general. In a similar vein, you may also send messages via carrier pigeon, making carrier pigeon a communication tool, but it's usually faster, easier, and more reliable to just use a cellphone. 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

In a similar vein, you may also send messages via carrier pigeon, making carrier pigeon a communication tool, but it's usually faster, easier, and more reliable to just use a cellphone. 

And any other form not involving pigeons has the added benefit of not having to deal with flying rodents.

[jefito 5,589]

Thanks gazumped.

 

Whether it is advertising copy or not to my mind it is still a clear statement that Evernote enables users to collaborate on projects which strongly implies that it allows multiple users to work together on content.  As has been clarified to me on another thread Evernote doesn't even allow users to move notes into notebooks which have been shared with them which is an unbelievable limitation for a tool claiming to be a collaboration tool.  I strongly believe that the Evernote line on this is misleading and I suspect deliberately so.

I should add that one thing that you can do in a positive way is to clearly and specifically identify what you expect in a collaboration tool, particularly with respect to the sorts of things that Evernote does, or could do. Claiming that Evernote isn't a collaboration tool doesn't leave anyone with much to go on in terms of implementing what you expect.

[Mattkc1 1]

So .. I have to agree.  Mostly.

 

I am not looking for "live" collaboration on documents.  there are clearly tools (like Google Docs etc) set up for that. 

 

However, I believe for Evernote sharing to really be anything valuable in my eyes, it has to literally be a "shared" notebook.  Meaning, whatever users I share that notebook with have permissions that either allow them to a) just view view and add NOTES to the notebook or c) view, add notes, and MODIFY/DELETE notes.

 

I don't know the value of the "read only" structure that has been set up.  Seems very limiting.

[Peter Daly-Dickson 0]

However Evernote is not, and has never claimed to be, a medium through which you can collaborate remotely.

 

What about Evernote Business?

[gazumped 11,652]

However Evernote is not, and has never claimed to be, a medium through which you can collaborate remotely.

 

What about Evernote Business?

 

Dunno - haven't read through all their promotional stuff about Business since I feel I understand enough about the way things work to guess how the extra bells and whistles will apply.  I'd still stick to my comments though - Business isn't about full-on collaboration on projects.  It's about sharing information,  communications and keeping up to date without the accompanying paper.  If you want to use it for 'collaboration' please define what you expect to get from it,  and beware that (AFAIK) file (note) locking and live updates are two things that are not available.

 

If you want to use any product for business purposes,  the due diligence is down to you.

[Ryango 0]

Here is a specific scenario:

 

My wife and I add to a grocery list at different times, in differen places. One of us goes to the store, and as we put items in our cart, check things off the list on a phone.

 

"Collaboration" is too fancy a word for this, but its a pattern with both business and consumer applications. It requries multiple people to have more or less equal access to a note, very simple. So, is it possible today, with either paid or free acounts?

 

Thanks for your attention,

[phils 220]

This is kind of an odd thread, since it pretty quickly veered off course from the initial inquiry.  While it's true that Evernote is not (and likely won't ever be) promoted as primarily a "collaboration tool", it can definitely do what Mr. Ruz, sswindon, and Mattkc1 wanted and what Ryango wants.  (The overall implication of the discussion seems to be that it can't.)  

 

A Premium (paid) account is required in order to share notes with others and for them to have the ability to modify those notes; Evernote Business is not required.

 

See this Knowledgebase article for a good description of sharing options.  The "Share a Notebok with Others" section is the relevant one for this discussion.

 

So for Ryango: yes, you and your wife can share a shopping-list note and can both edit it.  What's required is for one of you (but not both) to have a Premium (paid) account, and then for that Premium user to share the notebook containing the shopping-list note with the other user.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

So .. I have to agree.  Mostly.

 

I am not looking for "live" collaboration on documents.  there are clearly tools (like Google Docs etc) set up for that. 

 

However, I believe for Evernote sharing to really be anything valuable in my eyes, it has to literally be a "shared" notebook.  Meaning, whatever users I share that notebook with have permissions that either allow them to a) just view view and add NOTES to the notebook or c) view, add notes, and MODIFY/DELETE notes.

 

I don't know the value of the "read only" structure that has been set up.  Seems very limiting.

I have repeatedly posted on the board that IMO, EN is not a good collaboration tool, for the very reasons PhilS stated. However, I use read-only sharing often to share (NPI) information with others but don't want them to be able to modify the note. IE tutorials, recipes, journal entries, etc. It's very good for that purpose.

[phils 220]

Obviously the whole topic of Evernote as a collaboration tool is quite open to interpretation and there are lots of opinions on the subject - all valid, as there's no right answer to the "Is Evernote a collaboration tool?" question.

 

I do just want to be clear that I didn't state that it's not a good collaboration tool and in fact, I believe that for simple collaboration needs, it can work great.  Certainly it's not the collaboration tool that an Asana, Podio, Basecamp, Wrike, etc etc are, nor will it likely ever be.

[gazumped 11,652]

"Collaboration" seems to mean a lot of diffrn't things to diffrn't folks,  from sharing a shopping list to writing a novel.  Evernote is good at the simple stuff,  and it may be all you need.  SInce free accounts now include one share with editing priviledges,  it's easy enough to set up a quick share to see if your collaboration of choice is actually viable that way.  That's really what I mean by 'due diligence' - if you have a use case in mind,  don't ask a bunch of uncommitted strangers like us what we think;  run your own test and see if things work within limits you're willing to accept.  If they do,  fine.  If not.. at least you have a place to keep notes of other collaboration tools whilst you look for a better option...

[ozmark 1]

Has Evernote improved this sharing thing yet?

 

I have premium.  One of my notebooks got out of hand and now has over 1000 notes.  I want my VA who has a free copy of Evernote to go through these notes and re-sort them into several notebooks so I don't have one big bucket.   So I created 5 new empty notebooks and shared those with her as well.

 

She now has full modify access to all 6 notebooks.  We can both edit the notes and they appear edited on both machines so we know the connection works.  But she can't move the note into any one of these folders?  

 

I didn't think that was a big ask.  Now she has offered to cut and paste each one, one by one.  So that would be one cut and paste for the title and one cut and paste for the content per notebook plus any tags etc all X 1000+ notes.  Very nice of her, but that's just nuts.

 

Does anyone have any idea how this can be done so she can help me re-sort these notes without just giving her my own login details and full access to everything in my personal Evernote account (which I really don't want to do)?

[jefito 5,589]

I have premium.  One of my notebooks got out of hand and now has over 1000 notes.  I want my VA who has a free copy of Evernote to go through these notes and re-sort them into several notebooks so I don't have one big bucket.   So I created 5 new empty notebooks and shared those with her as well.

 

She now has full modify access to all 6 notebooks.  We can both edit the notes and they appear edited on both machines so we know the connection works.  But she can't move the note into any one of these folders? 

 

She should be able to do this. I do this myself, between my work and personal accounts. I keep a writable notebook in my premium personal account for software development articles, and I share it with my free work account. Sometimes I clip articles at work that want to go into my Development notebook. I can do this just fine, either moving them singly, or by multi-selecting and choosing the Development notebook from the multi-select panel.

[ozmark 1]

When she selects the drop down list of notebooks (what you would press to select to move to a new notebook), none of the notebooks appear in that list.  If she creates a notebook on her own machine, those appear in the list, but none of the ones I created and shared with her - even though they are all visible (and available) in the left panel.