Experience So Far

[dspapps 6]

I signed up to EB to try to establish if it can be used as a repository for business documents from different support functions for our group.

 

My use case is 5 Business Notebooks with about 20 notes in total.

 

Using the Windows, iPad and iPhone clients....

 

Initial findings:

 

Good:

 

• Handwriting search is great feature
• Search in Office documents is excellent
• Clients are available for all platforms
• Business Library is a good idea
• E-mail to Evernote function

 

Bad:

• I have to use a RC version to avoid the main bugs in the commercial release
• The functionality of iphone, ipad, web and windows clients vary in an illogical manner
• The Business Library function is still pre-release
• Customer support is largely in Pacific time zone
• I haven't found a good use for 'Chat with Evernote' apart from raising support tickets
• There is no free trial on the business functionality/plan (I have to say I can see why)
• Answers from support tickets sometimes do not address the issue raised, one-line replies
• Support people don't seem to know the functionality available in each client
• Answers from support contain instructions to perform tasks which are not possible
• I get locked out of my own business notebooks (they change to 'View Only')
• I seem to have two members on some of my notebooks but only one user in my account
• There appears to be no way to share my screen with a support tech to help communicate basic bugs
• I have to visit a forum to find out if anyone has the same problems as I
• Sync between clients is slow and inconsistent.  Perhaps broken.
• 'Sync Failed' messages appear
• Evernote trunk misses the key information about which apps 'sync' and which just export to Evernote.  Sync is must-have for our needs.
• I have had to delete my Evernote database and start again (instructed by support)  This is not great.
• I haven't had time to investigate the good stuff, e.g. encryption, trunk apps, etc.

 

Evernote (+Business) may scale to be able to service the business customer but at the moment it's not there for me.

 

My experiences may not be typical for sure, but my feeling is to come back in a few months and perhaps revisit.

 

At the moment I can't justify signing up any of our users to this service until the software works.

[C6REW 416]

Have carried out further tests as follows:

 

The link works no problem on the iPad and on the Web.

 

If you triple click fast in the Windows software, it actually opens the pdf!

 

So definitely looks like a problem dlu.

 

Will try again in the morning on the Windows software.

 

Regards

 

Chris

[C6REW 416]

Chris

Sorry there were a lot of posts in between and I wanted to confirm, the error you're referencing here is that you lose note links when moving notes between business notebooks?

 

Yes! Basically if you move the Note with a pdf document that you have created a link to on another Note, to another Business Notebook, you loose the link.

 

Best regards

 

Chris

[dlu 628]

The Share>Copy Note URL To Clipboard function is faulty.

 

Causes repeated full syncs, each taking 2 mins.

 

Repro:

1 Manual sync

2 Click on a note, Share>Copy Note URL To Clipboard

3 Full sync is triggered (asynchronous or syncronous with the 'Synchronising notes...' modal dialog box showing)

4 Click on another note, Share>Copy Link To Clipboard

5 Full sync is triggered (asynchronous or syncronous with the 'Synchronising notes...' modal dialog box showing)

6 Rinse and repeat from step 2

 

No changes were made to any note.

 

To share 4 documents it takes quite a while ! 

 

Could you do this and PM me your activity logs? Also, did you already open a support ticket about this? I think I saw/heard about this from customer support...

[dlu 628]

Still not working on the Windows software.

 

Running Evernote 4.6.4.8316

Windows 7

 

Regards

 

Chris

 

Sorry there were a lot of posts in between and I wanted to confirm, the error you're referencing here is that you lose note links when moving notes between business notebooks?

[dspapps 6]

The Share>Copy Note URL To Clipboard function is faulty.

 

Causes repeated full syncs, each taking 2 mins.

 

Repro:

1 Manual sync

2 Click on a note, Share>Copy Note URL To Clipboard

3 Full sync is triggered (asynchronous or syncronous with the 'Synchronising notes...' modal dialog box showing)

4 Click on another note, Share>Copy Link To Clipboard

5 Full sync is triggered (asynchronous or syncronous with the 'Synchronising notes...' modal dialog box showing)

6 Rinse and repeat from step 2

 

No changes were made to any note.

 

To share 4 documents it takes quite a while ! 

[C6REW 416]

Just spotted that now I have additional Notes above the one I created that when you click on the 'link' to the Note containing the pdf, that what it does is move to the top of the Notebook!

 

Regards

 

Chris

[C6REW 416]

Sync still looks broken and untested on Windows based on my experiences.

 

I now have 119 notes in 10 business notebooks.

 

It takes close to 1min34secs per sync.

I do repeated manual syncs, they all take the same length of time....

 

No changes made to any notebook either before sync or during syncs.

 

Surely only the changes to any note/notebook should be synced..?

 

I don't understand why Evernote release this when the fundamental features don't work.

 

Looks like marketing and product delivery departments are out of sync...

 

 

I have in excess of 11,000 Notes in Business and Personal sections and unless I make some major alterations a sync only takes a couple of minutes and most of the time less than that.

You may find your 'syncs' are working on various parts of your 'small' database, but unfortunately I cannot confirm this. But can confirm it has happened with my own syncs.

 

Best regards

 

 

Chris

[dspapps 6]

Sync still looks broken and untested on Windows based on my experiences.

 

I now have 119 notes in 10 business notebooks.

 

It takes close to 1min34secs per sync.

I do repeated manual syncs, they all take the same length of time....

 

No changes made to any notebook either before sync or during syncs.

 

Surely only the changes to any note/notebook should be synced..?

 

I don't understand why Evernote release this when the fundamental features don't work.

 

Looks like marketing and product delivery departments are out of sync...

[C6REW 416]

Still not working on the Windows software.

 

Running Evernote 4.6.4.8316

Windows 7

 

Regards

 

Chris

[C6REW 416]

Repro steps:

1 Pick any business notebook

2 Add a 'hello world' note

3 Add any PDF or attachment to the notebook

4 Click on 'Copy Note Link' on the PDF note

5 Add this hyperlink to the original 'hello world' note

6 Click the hyperlink

7 This shows that hyperlinks work in some cases

8 Move the PDF note to any another business notebook.  As I understand it, the links should still work between notes, regardless of which notebook they reside.

9 Click the hyperlink

10 The Windows client jumps to the correct PDF note for a split second and then straight back to the note containing the hyperlink

11 Hyperlinks are now broken.

 

 

I tried exactly the same process and additionally synced after creating two new Notes. Synced again after pasting the link, they synced again after moving the Note with pdf in it.

 

I experienced exactly the same problem as you did.

 

This was two Notes created in a Business Notebook and the pdf Note moved to another Business Notebook. Both Notebook are existing ones.

 

I will leave the Notes in my system and try again later on.

 

Regards

 

Chris

[dspapps 6]

Yes, I did move the note to a newly created notebook.

 

As far as I can tell there is no documentation asking me to sync prior to doing that.

 

I downloaded the most recent release earlier today and tried again...

 

What happens now is that instead of quickly jumping back to the note containing the link, it jumps to an apparently random note in the notebook where the moved note used to be.

 

Essentially the link still doesn't work.

 

I will experiment further when I have more stuff to add.

[dlu 628]

Today's task took longer than expected due to strange behaviour in the Windows client.

 

Essentially hyperlinks between notes don't work correctly.

 

Repro steps:

1 Pick any business notebook

2 Add a 'hello world' note

3 Add any PDF or attachment to the notebook

4 Click on 'Copy Note Link' on the PDF note

5 Add this hyperlink to the original 'hello world' note

6 Click the hyperlink

7 This shows that hyperlinks work in some cases

8 Move the PDF note to any another business notebook.  As I understand it, the links should still work between notes, regardless of which notebook they reside.

9 Click the hyperlink

10 The Windows client jumps to the correct PDF note for a split second and then straight back to the note containing the hyperlink

11 Hyperlinks are now broken.

 

Unfortunately I decided I needed a 'library' notebook containing lots of PDF's I had scattered around other notes.

 

I moved all my PDF's from other notebooks into the new 'library' notebook.  This turned out to be a mistake.

 

This broke all my links and I had to relink every hyperlink.  This was even more time consuming due to the sync bug in post #5 when generating a hyperlink.......

 

I like this product a little less today due to the extra time and cost it is incurring doing the basics.

 

Still say 'buyer beware' until the product is fit for business.

 

Did you happen to move it to a newly created business notebook? Could you create the notebook "library" then hit sync before try moving the notes into it? If the problem doesn't come up then that should confirm you're hitting a known bug. This bug was fixed in our newly released 4.6.4 version.

 

thanks!

[dspapps 6]

Today's task took longer than expected due to strange behaviour in the Windows client.

 

Essentially hyperlinks between notes don't work correctly.

 

Repro steps:

1 Pick any business notebook

2 Add a 'hello world' note

3 Add any PDF or attachment to the notebook

4 Click on 'Copy Note Link' on the PDF note

5 Add this hyperlink to the original 'hello world' note

6 Click the hyperlink

7 This shows that hyperlinks work in some cases

8 Move the PDF note to any another business notebook.  As I understand it, the links should still work between notes, regardless of which notebook they reside.

9 Click the hyperlink

10 The Windows client jumps to the correct PDF note for a split second and then straight back to the note containing the hyperlink

11 Hyperlinks are now broken.

 

Unfortunately I decided I needed a 'library' notebook containing lots of PDF's I had scattered around other notes.

 

I moved all my PDF's from other notebooks into the new 'library' notebook.  This turned out to be a mistake.

 

This broke all my links and I had to relink every hyperlink.  This was even more time consuming due to the sync bug in post #5 when generating a hyperlink.......

 

I like this product a little less today due to the extra time and cost it is incurring doing the basics.

 

Still say 'buyer beware' until the product is fit for business.

[dspapps 6]

Part of my testing is to add notes to a notebook and link to them from other notebooks.

 

This means I need to use the 'Copy Note Link' function on PC/XP client.

 

Seem to have hit a bug (reported) which is slowing progress on this.

 

Repro steps:

1 Pick any business notebook

2 Add a 'hello world' note

3 Click right button on that note and select 'Copy Note Link'.

 

This seems to trigger a full sync of my database.  Been running stopwatch on this and adding each note and linking to it takes between 1m30secs and 2m30secs.

 

I now have 35 notes in total, some PDF's and Excel.  The search function is real fast and useful I have to say.

[dspapps 6]

So far this week have added a two or three notebooks, however:

 

- MHTML export faulty, accepted as bug via support ticket

- iPad and iPhone apps refuse to sync via WiFi (Synchronization failed, Unknown error 'u3', raised ticket with support)

 

On the plus side I have figured out why I had reduced permissions to notebooks I created after publishing (it's by design) and how to workaround that with help of support - I manually give myself permission again via Admin Console.

 

Avoiding Business Library for the moment until I make a backup copy my Evernote database.

 

The failed iPad sync is a red flag for us as potential users.

 

EDIT - Support asked me to uninstall and install the app - this works so far and I can now sync to iOS.

EDIT 2 - This works for a limited time then uninstall/install is required repeatedly after fresh u3 sync errors appear.

[dspapps 6]

I think I can provide a little more detail:

I have to use a RC version to avoid the main bugs in the commercial release

- I could not convert Personal Notes to Business Notes according to forum posts, I used the 'Download Prereleases' option to fix this and get the most recent release

The functionality of iphone, ipad, web and windows clients vary in an illogical manner

- in Business Library I get an arrow to open a business note on each joined notebook on certain clients only, not in Windows

- I actually raised a support ticket because I thought something was wrong with the windows client as there is a hover arrow in the web client, was expecting to see it too in windows, rightly or wrongly. Was told this was by design

The Business Library function is still pre-release

- it seems to have such little functionality it doesn't seem worthwhile. I was expecting to be able to do more with this

I get locked out of my own business notebooks (they change to 'View Only')

- if I publish a business notebook to the business library it becomes View Only.

- after I leave t it appears back in my business notebooks (not in the stack it originally came from)

- it is then View Only. I have to delete it and start again if any changes needed to it

I seem to have two members on some of my notebooks but only one user in my account

- some business notebooks have this issue, no idea why. Check in business admin console

- this may not be causing a problem but it's not expected behaviour

- passed to support

Sync between clients is slow and inconsistent. Perhaps broken.

- running various clients, expecting clean sync I was disappointed

- if we have multiple people working on notebooks and publishing them, I don't have 100% confidence based on what I have seen

- manual sync seems to be needed from PC client and is slow. If I had more notebooks it would maybe be unusable

- renaming business notebooks seems to cause issues with sync and publish

'Sync Failed' messages appear

- this was fixed by renaming my database file and starting from scratch

- seen at bottom right of windows client on message popup

- this may happen again in the future, I have no clue

If I was a consumer client I would probably be delighted, but the 'business' functionality doesn't appear ready to me - today.

[dlu 628]

I signed up to EB to try to establish if it can be used as a repository for business documents from different support functions for our group.

 

My use case is 5 Business Notebooks with about 20 notes in total.

 

Using the Windows, iPad and iPhone clients....

 

Initial findings:

 

Good:

 

• Handwriting search is great feature
• Search in Office documents is excellent
• Clients are available for all platforms
• Business Library is a good idea
• E-mail to Evernote function

 

Bad:

• I have to use a RC version to avoid the main bugs in the commercial release
• The functionality of iphone, ipad, web and windows clients vary in an illogical manner
• The Business Library function is still pre-release
• Customer support is largely in Pacific time zone
• I haven't found a good use for 'Chat with Evernote' apart from raising support tickets
• There is no free trial on the business functionality/plan (I have to say I can see why)
• Answers from support tickets sometimes do not address the issue raised, one-line replies
• Support people don't seem to know the functionality available in each client
• Answers from support contain instructions to perform tasks which are not possible
• I get locked out of my own business notebooks (they change to 'View Only')
• I seem to have two members on some of my notebooks but only one user in my account
• There appears to be no way to share my screen with a support tech to help communicate basic bugs
• I have to visit a forum to find out if anyone has the same problems as I
• Sync between clients is slow and inconsistent.  Perhaps broken.
• 'Sync Failed' messages appear
• Evernote trunk misses the key information about which apps 'sync' and which just export to Evernote.  Sync is must-have for our needs.
• I have had to delete my Evernote database and start again (instructed by support)  This is not great.
• I haven't had time to investigate the good stuff, e.g. encryption, trunk apps, etc.

 

Evernote (+Business) may scale to be able to service the business customer but at the moment it's not there for me.

 

My experiences may not be typical for sure, but my feeling is to come back in a few months and perhaps revisit.

 

At the moment I can't justify signing up any of our users to this service until the software works.

 

You listed out a fairly long list of issues, if you elaborate on the following, I would be curious to hear

• I have to use a RC version to avoid the main bugs in the commercial release
• The functionality of iphone, ipad, web and windows clients vary in an illogical manner
• The Business Library function is still pre-release
• I get locked out of my own business notebooks (they change to 'View Only')
• I seem to have two members on some of my notebooks but only one user in my account
• Sync between clients is slow and inconsistent.  Perhaps broken.
• 'Sync Failed' messages appear