(Archived) Evernote process tracking, collaboration, and communication in a small business setting

[wisslerm 0]

Hi everyone, I have been reading through forum posts to find information, but figured I'd start a dialog of my own. I want this post to be a series of "Is evernote right for this use case?" questions.

 

I'm really just trying to start a dialog with Evernote experts that are used to problem solving in the context of this system. If Evernote isn't right for any of these, I know you'll correct me. Or if Evernote is the right system for these cases, but we need to implement a notebook stack infrastructure/sharing/business library system that's different than what we have, then please feel free to point me to articles or tell me what we should be doing. I appreciate it.

 

As it stands, we're looking to potentially implement Evernote in our business model for 3 things:

 

1. Process tracking

 

At our business, we have to hand a single item off between people for them to complete tasks. Essentially this is equivalent to a routing sheet. One department gets the sheet, they check off their task, and then send the item on its way to the next department to do the same. However, these are all digital things, so tracking them is simultaneously difficult and important. Is Evernote (or any integration therein: Zapier, a trunk item, etc) right for us?

 

2. Collaboration

 

Many times, we will type up things that don't quite require a google-docs type setting, but want to re-version and make edits to a single document. What we can't have, however, is little slip ups that lead to conflicting changes, or at least not frequently. Has anyone set up a system to do this sort of thing? For a concrete example: I work on an R&D team, and many times we finely craft an email as a group, adding details where necessary. We don't necessarily want to have a google doc, but would like to be able to look back at the email if we have to.

 

Another example would be a coding style guide that we develop together. We would like to have a few people access the document for edits, and the entire company be able to see the document without editing it.

 

3. Communication

 

We have out-of-office personnel that need to communicate on a daily basis with us. We have notebooks set up to receive emails with @notebookname specifications, and office personnel that check those notebooks throughout the day. We've run into a few issues here:

 

The notes aren't named by default if the subject line is  "@notebookname"

The notes aren't signed by default if their email isn't configured to do so

Once in the notebook, assigning tasks is a cluster due to diffusion of responsibility (4 other people can see this note, so surely they'll take care of it!)

 

I know these issues sound like our users are children, but we'd like to implement our system in a fool-proof way. (Or as close as it gets)

 

Another issue here is: once the out-of-office personnel have evernote clients and can just drop notes in notebooks manually, if they leave an area of wireless service, a response doesn't send, and an office staff member changes a note, how much potential is there for system error with notes syncing over eachother without alert (or even with alert?)

__________

 

Again, thanks for your time. Any input on these items is greatly appreciated!

 

[Metrodon 2,184]

I'm a big fan of Evernote, but it's a really bad fit for you if you are going to have multiple people working on the same document at the same time.

 

For process tracking I'd look at JIRA and for the rest of your requirements Confluence, both from Atlassian.