Ask yourself one question before signing up to Evernote Business!

[paulelias 12]

I have been using Evernote Business for two years. I operate in two countries namely UK and China. All of my business projects and team collaborations are centered within Evernote.

Previously I used Basecamp but felt vulnerable because there was no Windows software, being purely cloud based. when Evernote Business came along I believed the fact that it was multi platform meant that I would always be able to access my projects...think again.

Yesterday morning I received a call from my China team at 5am UK time complaining they could not access any of the company data.When I logged in I found the same problem. After investigation it appeared that our business account had been deactivated and therefore all business data was unobtainable.

I am the administrator and the only person who could deactivate the account and I have definitely not done this.

We are now a business with free personal account status therefore we have no access to support chat and must rely upon creating a ticket and waiting for an email reply.

If you are a business professional reading this can you imagine trying to keep your business moving without access to any of the data created during the last two years?

Evernote Business is supposed to be a system for team collaboration and I have insisted all my team use it to the maximum. What a mistake!!

ASK YOURSELF CAN YOU AFFORD TO LOSE CONTACT WITH YOUR BUSINESS DATA

[jbenson2 2,147]

After investigation it appeared that our business account had been deactivated and therefore all business data was unobtainable.

I am the administrator and the only person who could deactivate the account and I have definitely not done this.

 

 

Ouch! Was there any advance notice from Evernote? 

 

If you are able to get an answer from Support, it would be helpful if you let us know what caused the deactivation.

[paulelias 12]

The latest info is I have reactiviated the account and I can now see all my business notebooks on the web but I am unable to see them using Windows client.

I can actually see the business library and when I go to this it tells all notebooks are published and joined. The only way I have get them to my windows client is to leave each notebooks and then join again. There are almost 500 notebooks.

Support are now trying to find out why this is happening.

Regarding the reason for deactivation, as yet I have not pushed this, preferring to get everything back online first. Once this has been done I will be seeking a written explanation and will post it here.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

thanks for keeping us updated. for any software, i recommend an exhaustive backup system. it's always good to have a plan b or c just in case, especially if you are working across borders when there really isn't any downtime and you need access to your data 24/7. on a mac, plugging in an external drive for time machine is a one-step easy way to do this.

[paulelias 12]

Thanks for the advice, I will give this some consideration. Actually I moved to Evernote because I believed I could access my business notebooks in all eventualities given that I was using a desktop application however it seems that once the business account is deactivated access to business notebooks is also deactivated.

The reason for the deactivation is:

1. My credit card lodged on the system went past the valid to date.

2. The email address on the system for invoicing notifications was not a valid address hence I never received any notifications of the impending doom.

My suggestion for Evernote would be to override any invalid email address for invoicing with the account administrator's email address. At least the person responsible for maintaining the Evernote service within an organisation would receive prior notification of any service withdrawal.

[Metrodon 2,184]

The very limited support hours, the slow support response and the lack of phone contact means that I would get laughed out of my office if I suggested using Evernote as a business solution. We have plenty of people who have Evernote accounts and use it every day, but it's miles behind it's competitors in terms of reliability and support.

[paulelias 12]

Would you mind me asking which solution you are using?

[Metrodon 2,184]

We use a mixture of apps, a couple of them I've recommended on here before are from Atlasssian. We use JIRA for all kinds of project management and ticketing and Confluence as a Wiki.

 

Both are extremely reliable, very configurable and I think decent value for money.

 

On the couple of occasions where we've needed support over many years of use (and only ever for very very small things), it has always been very quick and extremely helpful. 

 

I know some of our customers pay for the Premium support package which isn't cheap but if you are using these things in multi-$b businesses then everything is relative.

[lykoz 147]

 

We are now a business with free personal account status therefore we have no access to support chat and must rely upon creating a ticket and waiting for an email reply.

If you are a business professional reading this can you imagine trying to keep your business moving without access to any of the data created during the last two years?

 

Yep thats unfortunate.. There should be a grace period for support in all business accounts should something like this arise... i.e. unexpected deactivation.

 

Just a workaround incase this happens again...

Losing a days work or more due to no access can be devastating...

 

I would suggest next time you just make another paid premium account the second that happens so you can at least access premium chat support, and resolve your issue as fast as possible.

 

You could talk to support... find what went wrong.. And if their fault i think they could/should reimburse the $40 you paid for the extra premium account.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

that's an option as well. premium is only $5 a month. but, support is not open 24/7 and is closed on weekends. i still recommend everyone maintain their own backups of everything, not just evernote.

[lykoz 147]

that's an option as well. premium is only $5 a month. but, support is not open 24/7 and is closed on weekends. i still recommend everyone maintain their own backups of everything, not just evernote.

 

Yea... backups are a very important aspect in any business.

 

Thankfully Evernote has a feature to save all notebooks locally. Should keep backups as often as possible.

Your Computer back ups should include the local file.

 

If you back up your computer: Even if you didnt back-up evernote i think there are still traces of old notes in your backup? Am I correct here? or would those not be saved unless you backed up evernote locally and manually?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

that's an option as well. premium is only $5 a month. but, support is not open 24/7 and is closed on weekends. i still recommend everyone maintain their own backups of everything, not just evernote.

 

Yea... backups are a very important aspect in any business.

 

Thankfully Evernote has a feature to save all notebooks locally. Should keep backups as often as possible.

Your Computer back ups should include the local file.

 

If you back up your computer: Even if you didnt back-up evernote i think there are still traces of old notes in your backup? Am I correct here? or would those not be saved unless you backed up evernote locally and manually?

 

 

If you are on a Mac, Time Machine is probably your best option, because it will keep versions of your backups. What the backups will give you is immediate access to your data. However, I would stress that as a business, this is only a temporary measure to keep afloat, and it may not be easy to get everything working as it should without customer support. It is almost inevitably going to be messy. I've only ever had to mess around with backups as an individual, and even then, I was only dealing with a few corrupted notes or the like. And, on top of that, I had my own odd system that mirrored my account in another app so I wouldn't be affected by problems in Evernote (iOS used to cause me all kinds of headaches). 

[lykoz 147]

 

 

that's an option as well. premium is only $5 a month. but, support is not open 24/7 and is closed on weekends. i still recommend everyone maintain their own backups of everything, not just evernote.

 

Yea... backups are a very important aspect in any business.

 

Thankfully Evernote has a feature to save all notebooks locally. Should keep backups as often as possible.

Your Computer back ups should include the local file.

 

If you back up your computer: Even if you didnt back-up evernote i think there are still traces of old notes in your backup? Am I correct here? or would those not be saved unless you backed up evernote locally and manually?

 

 

If you are on a Mac, Time Machine is probably your best option, because it will keep versions of your backups. What the backups will give you is immediate access to your data. However, I would stress that as a business, this is only a temporary measure to keep afloat, and it may not be easy to get everything working as it should without customer support. It is almost inevitably going to be messy. I've only ever had to mess around with backups as an individual, and even then, I was only dealing with a few corrupted notes or the like. And, on top of that, I had my own odd system that mirrored my account in another app so I wouldn't be affected by problems in Evernote (iOS used to cause me all kinds of headaches). 

 

 

 

Thanks for reply...

 

What I am asking though is if I use a time machine backup... Will it save all my Evernote notes "in that point in time".....

 

Or do I manually have to do this first: Exporting Evernote Notes (Manual export of notes through Evernote)

 

ALSO (to be taken independently of everything I wrote on top)

 

If I have a time-machine backup.. and restore an older version... Will it compromise my cloud evernote notes for the few days between backup and restore?

(Notes may be upto date on Evernote Cloud irrelevant of what went wrong with my PC) I may not want to backlog my evernote that is safe on the cloud. I would only want to do that if the cloud backup was compromised.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

that's an option as well. premium is only $5 a month. but, support is not open 24/7 and is closed on weekends. i still recommend everyone maintain their own backups of everything, not just evernote.

 

Yea... backups are a very important aspect in any business.

 

Thankfully Evernote has a feature to save all notebooks locally. Should keep backups as often as possible.

Your Computer back ups should include the local file.

 

If you back up your computer: Even if you didnt back-up evernote i think there are still traces of old notes in your backup? Am I correct here? or would those not be saved unless you backed up evernote locally and manually?

 

If you are on a Mac, Time Machine is probably your best option, because it will keep versions of your backups. What the backups will give you is immediate access to your data. However, I would stress that as a business, this is only a temporary measure to keep afloat, and it may not be easy to get everything working as it should without customer support. It is almost inevitably going to be messy. I've only ever had to mess around with backups as an individual, and even then, I was only dealing with a few corrupted notes or the like. And, on top of that, I had my own odd system that mirrored my account in another app so I wouldn't be affected by problems in Evernote (iOS used to cause me all kinds of headaches).

 

 

Thanks for reply...

 

What I am asking though is if I use a time machine backup... Will it save all my Evernote notes "in that point in time".....

 

Or do I manually have to do this first: Exporting Evernote Notes (Manual export of notes through Evernote)

 

ALSO (to be taken independently of everything I wrote on top)

 

If I have a time-machine backup.. and restore an older version... Will it compromise my cloud evernote notes for the few days between backup and restore?

(Notes may be upto date on Evernote Cloud irrelevant of what went wrong with my PC) I may not want to backlog my evernote that is safe on the cloud. I would only want to do that if the cloud backup was compromised.

That point in time. Hence, the name, TimeMachine

Look it up on Google. It is pretty amazing if you've ever had the unenviable experience of using backup programs in the 90s or early 2000s. But, it is more for individuals / small businesses.

As for restoration... that is a thorny issue. As I said, I've only used it for individual notes in my account. For more notes than that, or a business, you are looking at a lot more potential trouble spots. The backup will give you access to that critical purchase order, for example, but any changes Bill made to it in China a few minutes before the service disappeared are anyone's guess. If I were running a business (I am not, though I used to run my own business of one back in the day), I'd be very carefully constructing a robust system that can handle outages and similar obstacles, and I'd be testing it out before it happens.

In the case of the OP, this is a known issue that has been encountered before. I'm not faulting him, but saying that it really pays to do a "stress test" on your system and really work through all of the potential trouble spots. This might require hiring one of those business consultants or running through everything with an Evernote rep. Evernote Business has a lot of potential to help, I think, but it still seems to me that business owners need to do a lot of the legwork to make up for rough spots. I agree that Evernote ought to be giving some kind of grace period. A red flashing light on the satellite icon would do the trick

[C6REW 416]

I cannot begin to imagine how devastating this loss would be to the smooth running of our Business account.

 

The idea of a 'red flashing light' seems like an excellent idea Grumpy. I wonder if we should make Evernote aware of how important this idea is by starting a new thread that everyone can sign up to?

 

I recall early last year when our credit cards were compromised and I had them changed, receiving an email from Evernote letting me know that our card was invalid. This was more than 6 months before the renewal. Which tells me that Evernote are obviously tracking the situation with payment methods and for that I applaud them.

 

Any email from Evernote is scrutinized by me to make sure any actions I need to take are completed. The emails are also automatically put in a sub folder in MS Outlook to make sure they stand out.

 

Best regards

 

 

Chris

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I cannot begin to imagine how devastating this loss would be to the smooth running of our Business account.

The idea of a 'red flashing light' seems like an excellent idea Grumpy. I wonder if we should make Evernote aware of how important this idea is by starting a new thread that everyone can sign up to?

I recall early last year when our credit cards were compromised and I had them changed, receiving an email from Evernote letting me know that our card was invalid. This was more than 6 months before the renewal. Which tells me that Evernote are obviously tracking the situation with payment methods and for that I applaud them.

Any email from Evernote is scrutinized by me to make sure any actions I need to take are completed. The emails are also automatically put in a sub folder in MS Outlook to make sure they stand out.

Best regards

Chris

As I understand it, the issue is that emails are going out, but aren't being read. The "wrong" account or perhaps the junk for some folks. It doesn't matter, in my opinion, because Evernote should already know from past experience that emails aren't the best way to get in touch with users no matter how many times they prompt me to update / confirm my email! However, Evernote can contact everyone through their accounts, right? They do it every day when they show in the account information how many days are left in the month for the upload amount and how much has been uploaded. The only change I am suggesting is that they color the satellite red instead of blue along with a message if folks tap the icon to indicate users need to address something in their account immediately. No, not for reminding us about confirming our emails or anything else unnecessary. Rather, for important stuff like credit cards that have been changed, the end of a premium / business subscription, etc. Then, if users ignore it, it's on their heads.

Now, given the constant hacks and resulting credit card changes, we can pretty much assume that Evernote is losing out on customers when accounts fail to roll over, and customers are losing out on service when they miss the warnings. Compounding the problem is the lack of support for free users. It's an ugly situation that is easily predicted, so I don't know why something hasn't been done to address it. Then again, we still have iTunes payment problems several years after they started appearing. If I were Evernote, I'd find a way to get this payment stuff straight. Somehow, other services have done a fantastic job of parting me from my money on an annual / monthly basis

[gazumped 11,652]

One of the first business principles I ever learned (I believe it was inscribed into a stone block in hieroglyphs) - "Never make it hard for customers to give you money".

[Metrodon 2,184]

Just a comparison with Atlassian.

We have some maintenance due in early January which I will take care of on Monday. As well as sending a number of email reminders I've also had a Customer service rep leave me 2 voicemail messages to remind me. Very pro-active and very human.

[Kneedeepat 8]

I had been an evernote Premium User for years, and then on Sunday upgraded to Business. I wish I had read your post first.  The upgrade process resulted in the loss of one of my notebooks, a very valuable set of business data. four days later, I still have not been able to get support to provide any sort of meaningful solution, and they have also refused to give me a refund or help me export my notes. I'm so disappointed at the terrible response i have gotten from the business support team. 

[paulelias 12]

Sorry to hear you are having these issues, I empathise with you. I have used EN Business for years and unfortunately the volume of niggles never reduces, its just different niggles.

Last week I unlinked myself from about 30 notebooks to try and clean up my desktop. Immediately afterwards my sync failed. I contacted support and sent the obligatory activity log. I was told there was a bug and EN would have to correct it. This was the response:

Thank you for your patience and working with me on this.

I have gathered enough details to determine that this appears to be a bug. I am going to pass this along to my product team to further investigate.

In the meantime, I will need to wait for the quality assurance lead to finish testing and then assign it a priority. Based on their priority they will implement a fix. Due to the nature and way software changes and processes are implemented it may take sometime to implement a fix. I do understand how this can be frustrating and I am hopeful that a fix will be ready shortly. I also recommend following the discussions in our user forums (https://discussion.evernote.com) for the most up-to-date info on when fixes are released. Finally, it is advised to download our latest updates when they become available, so you don't miss out on any of our latest features and bug fixes.

Again, thank you very much for helping to bring this issue to our attention, I hope that we can get this resolved quickly and let me know if you have any further questions.

Thank you for your feedback and being a valued Evernote user

 

After almost one week being unable to sync EN with my colleagues I rejoined all the notebooks and did a database rebuild and it worked.

The point is, I cannot keep experiencing these issues which effectively destroy data communication within my business.

I think Evernote are trying to be all things to all men (and woman) and the task is far too great.

I give up.......

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

Although, I am an Evernote fanatic and a Premium user, i use Google Apps for my work needs. I also get a substantial discount coming from India, and the services received to the cost paid are awesome, and trust me, their support is way way way ahead of Evernote. I am having an unresolved issue, for past 3 days, and for 3 days without fail, i get a phone call from Google Support to help me with the problem.. 

 

 

There is also the practicable quotient. Lets take Evernote's Work chat. It may work great if everyone is on Evernote. But, if your sending someone who does not have an EN account, the experience, is well.. meh.. Take the other side. Virtually everyone in the world uses Google, and Google's real time communication systems are A1 top class.. Yes, Google Keep does not match 1/100th of Evernote, agreed. Google does not have a world class Web Clipper .. Here and there Evernote comes out on top.. Maybe, Evernote is more privacy better, but on the whole for business, my safe bet would be Google Apps.. Evernote for Business has miles to go.. ahead.. 

 

and the more they focus on selling socks and shoes, rather than fixing bugs, creating relevant more new services and addressing real user needs... I am sure there would be more disappointed users who will be if EN does not lend out Hello and Peek's code than happy ones who bought Evernote branded socks and gloves.. 

 

My best wishes to Evernote and Mr Phil Libin, as Evernote's growth trajectory still continues to remain a mystery.. Transparency.. still continues to be on the low side.. User issues are plenty.. Business users.. Well Good luck..  

[paulelias 12]

I would have chosen Google Apps but my business is in China and the Chinese government keep blocking anything related to Google. Fact of life I'm afraid.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Yikes, it is dismaying to hear this. There are definitely some loose screws with Evernote as a service for businesses. I mean, even Squarespace offers 24/7 support for their online storefront customers (heck, even for their plain-jane state-your-opinion bloggers like myself). That sort of thing is pretty damned important when you have an international user base of businesspeople. I think Evernote needs to step up their game here if they want to really be an enterprise staple. 

 

Also, while Paul and any other business/non-business user can backup their contents, the backup system is rather clumsy at best. Either you get granular backups you perform manually when you remember (export notebook X, export notebook Y) and/or you get automatic backups of a database that can only be restored in whole or not at all. Neither of these are ideal because  restoring a database, especially with lots of shared content could cause problems for other members, and it also could, well, just cause problems altogether! Manually exporting is fine, but the possibility for human error is so great. Even had Paul had a good backup system, it wouldn't have necessarily meant he was back up and productive a whole lot sooner.

 

While other database-based applications don't have it much better, there are some more elegant implementations of database backups that ease the pain at least a little bit. 

 

Nevertheless, this is precisely one of the reasons why I have moved my work-related content out of Evernote (in addition to the fact that I can't legally store some of it there). To me the reliability issues and the clumsiness of backup were too risky to put my money on. I still keep my household and some personal stuff in EN, because in most cases I can go without that for a while if it takes time to get my data back in the event of loss/disruption, but I can't afford to lose days of productivity with work. And I'm not even a Business user, just a regular Premium user. 

 

I'm confident that EN will step things up, these things take time, and while EN is not a small company any more, they aren't a huge one either. The question is, how long will it take to become as robust as is required to be reliable in mission critical contexts. 

 

Glad you got access to your files again, damned shame you lost so many days of productivity. 

[Jojo 2]

How unfortunate.

 

If local back ups are still not the answer.. Then does anyone know if their is a way to export a note book to Ms one note?

[C6REW 416]

How unfortunate.

 

If local back ups are still not the answer.. Then does anyone know if their is a way to export a note book to Ms one note?

 

Information here Jojo.

 

http://en2one.proboards.com/

 

Regards

 

Chris

[Jojo 2]

Thank you Chris,

 

Can anyone point me to how and what to do with the local database if backed up?

 

My database is close to 5 Gigs and i am thinking of using onenote as a back up to EN. We just cannot go through losing days.

Getting live help should not be that hard, when we need it we would be happy to pay for someone to remote in.

 

Its unfortunate that I have to ask on this forum and get better advice when we are paying close to 600.00 yearly for our business account users.

 

Joseph

[TIddly27 39]

While not an exact solution, we are using CloudHQ for just one of our backups.  It turns all notes into PDF files for you, keeping the note hirearchy as a folder structure.  Again it is not perfect, but I have access to all of the information on my notes.  I also have a backup of the database once a day which at least gives me a snapshot, which I had to use.  When we switched over from premium to business I lost a lot of my data.  Since I had the database backed up, we restored from that.

Have a GREAT day!

[paulelias 12]

Hi Tiddly that sounds like a good idea but how does CloudHQ manage any files which might be embedded in the notes? Are they left behind?

[TIddly27 39]

All attachments are also saved.