How to best integrate Evernote -- Suggestions.

[D Davis 0]

I have been using the premium part of Evernote for about a month now. I have been able to migrate all the files from the business (invoice, estimates, payments, statements, etc.) to the premium account. What is really nice, now I want to do more with Evernote, but want to receive suggestions or have you thought of from others in the Evernote community?

 

I want have my employees who work in field operations to have access to Evernote through iPhones, iPads, and laptops. This would be to allow them to take photographs upload in to the default area of the account. Then to be able to use the note features of the account. And then move to where they could pull up fillable PDF forms, complete them, file them back in to Evernote as well as get the customer to sign the document. Let me give a simple, but similar process.

 

A customer calls, a time and date are scheduled for the appointment. The field operator arrives, discusses the project or work with the customer – takes pictures with either an iPhone, Ipad or with a digital camera. While talking with the customer, to be able to make notes – either directly with Evernote or through another application such as Penultimate that the field guys can use on the ipad.  Then all this information is uploaded in to Evernote, by each user and accessible. With regards to what has been loaded, they will need to have access, but not have it readily available all the time. They should be able to search it, but not have it on the synched with the iphones and ipads as with the premium account. I have not found any way for the users to not carry all the files in the premium account with them all the time.

 

If anyone has come across any other references, then please share them as I am in the early stages of planning for Evernote integration with my business.

 

thanks in advance - and looking forward to good questions or responses.

[C6REW 416]

Hi and welcome to the forum,

 

I have re read this a few times and all you seem to be asking is that you want employees to upload information but don't want the information 'synced' to their iphone's or ipad's.

 

My first reaction is that you may have used the incorrect terminology but forgive me if I have misunderstood you. I think that you want them to synch the data, you don't want it to download and 'clog' up their phones and ipads. This is about the 'offline notebook' setting. So if you don't want them to download all the data then don't select it on their phone or ipad for 'offline' use. So it will only be available when they have an internet connection. This may be a problem if they are in a bad signal area and need to fill in a form. But you could have them set up for an 'offline' Notebook book that say had templates of the form, which would get you over this problem.

 

If I have misunderstood your query do give us a more detailed description.

 

Best regards

 

Chris

[AndyDent 97]

One thing to be cautious of is the way sync works - ALL the metadata for all the notebooks is downloaded. There may be a difference with the Business version but it would be worth getting this checked out. This metadata includes the tiny snippet images used to give you a list of notes.

 

This means you can be disconnected from Evernote and still see the list of notes, just not their content.

 

Having an offline notebook means the contents for notes in that notebook are downloaded to the mobile device. it also implies that notes you write on the device will stay there. This is an important gotcha for people - there's no guarantee that notes will remain on a device UNLESS they are in an offline notebook. Once a new note is synced back to the server, it can vanish from the device.

 

You can always write a new note, regardless of the notebook offline setting.

 

So, you may be confusing seeing the list of notes with having the actual content there, or you may have All notes selected in the Offline Notebooks setting. At least on the iOS version, in the Offline Notebooks setting you can choose to only download specific notebooks.

 

note: On the iOS version at least, it appears that the metadata sync occurs before note content loading, although going quickly into a given note sometimes appears to to get its content whilst the metadata sync continues in the background. I have found myself frustratedly waiting for a lot of note updates to reach the device before I get the one note I want. So, if you are changing offline notebook settings, it's a good idea to sync up before leaving the office and being on your cell service.

 

As a developer, I understand some of the reasons for this sync behaviour and I have read forum postings saying Evernote intend adding refinements but there's no public timeline for how soon this will change.

 

Check out https://kustomnote.com for form filling. I don't think anyone has PDF form filling integrated with Evernote.

 

It sound like you need a custom app writing for some of the behaviour you want.

 

If you have such an app developed, it can have its own behaviour in terms of what content is downloaded and stays offline. There's nothing in the Evernote API or their terms of service which forces an app to mimic the sync behaviour of their current clients.

[AWE_Trashman 0]

I could not agree with the original post more! This is a HUGE need for Evernote to address and/or 3rd party App Builders. I have been using Evernote Business actually and still find that Evernote would be my primary method of handing Service Tickets for technicians in the field IF there was some "fillable" PDF or other form to use.

 

Also, I will tell you that you need to go with Evernote Business for your workers. Than you can "share" certain Business Notebooks with them that will sync and the others will not.