After going back and forth with several options for building out my personal document management system, I opted to sign up for a premium Evernote account. Before this, my options were:
- Evernote Document Management
- Using Evernote As Document Management
- Evernote As Document Management System
Evernote Document Management
- Do nothing and digitize documents on an ad hoc basis – too chaotic and disorganized.
- Store digital scans on Dropbox – files are not searchable.
- Use Google Docs – limitation on PDF file size and clumsy upload process.
- Install local document management system – requires maintenance and backup.
By upgrading to the Evernote premium edition, I go from 40 mb upload a month to 500 mb. Additionally, I can now upload any file type and search within a PDF. I have a Lexmark Prestige 805 multiprinter at home. It’s wireless and has a built in Evernote function that with one click will scan and email the PDF to my Evernote email upload account.
My workflow goes as follows:
Evernote helps you capture and manage ideas, projects, memories, and to-do lists in a single place. Write notes, attach documents. A project consists typically of various small tasks. A task is an activity that must be completed within a specified period for achieving the set goals. A practical task management process helps in managing your team’s workload and their respective responsibilities. A task management software helps to automate and monitoring a task through all its lifecycle to ensure proper execution. Evernote uses cookies to enable the Evernote service and to improve your experience with us. Back up important documents to all your devices, and keep the information—not the clutter. Learn more → Web Clipper. Save web pages (without the ads) and mark them up with arrows, highlights, and text to make them more useful.
- Input into Evernote using scanner, iPhone app to snap an image, or clip using the web tool.
- Periodically, log into Evernote and tag and categorize my files.
- Search when I need info.
The key feature that was the selling point for me is the ability to search everything. Evernote includes built in OCR to recognize text from PDFs to images, including handwritten notes. When you’re looking for a document, you’ll find that search is the lifesaver. Instead of sifting through piles and piles of documents, I can simply use a few keywords and narrow things down.
Easily organize your company’s information
Sometimes it feels like you’re drowning in documents. Who’s got the latest version of that whitepaper? Where can you find that subcontractor’s paperwork from five years ago? And why is everyone emailing long documents to each other rather than just providing what’s important? Let’s face it—your computer’s search bar isn’t always great at, you know, finding things.
With Evernote Business, you can centralize, organize, and manage your company’s documents, spreadsheets, multimedia files, emails, and even Slack conversations. It’s a flexible way to store information in any format securely, and to make sure the right people can find it, no matter where they are. Spaces and notebooks keep things organized, while sophisticated search grammar and syntax empower teams to find what they need, when they need it. So stop digging through files and combing your network for documents. Evernote Business puts it all at your fingertips.
File management for the digital age
Businesses need ways to store, organize, share, and update their files over time. Most businesses these days rely on robust document management software. Using a digital solution reduces the need for physical document storage in file cabinets and boxes. It also improves security, regulatory compliance, document retrieval, file backup, and disaster recovery.
A good document management system (DMS) includes the following features:
Using Evernote As Document Management
Evernote As Document Management System
Support for a wide range of document types
People work with a variety of documents every day. These include word processing files, spreadsheets, design files, PDFs, emails, images, digital notepads, audio recordings, and more. A good DMS will seamlessly capture, store, and organize all of these document types.File structure
Document management depends on organizing files in a logical manner. This may include document hierarchies and groupings, tagging, dating, and deletion protocols for outdated files.File search and document retrieval
One of the best things about digital document management is you no longer have to dig through file cabinets, hunting for a lost piece of paper. The file structure of a good DMS provides the backbone for quick file retrieval. Advanced search makes it easy to find what you need by file name, keywords, tags, file type, or dates of creation and modification.Security and file permissions
Protecting sensitive documents depends on a strong permission system and access control. Your contractors should have different permissions than your CEO, and teams may need permissions that can change as the need arises.Monitoring tools
An effective DMS allows administrators to monitor user activity—who accessed what, when, and for how long. This provides an audit trail to follow if questions arise later.Version control
Similarly, a well-designed DMS enables users to track any changes to a document and quickly recover old versions.Ease of access and sharing
People aren’t going to use a system that’s overly complex or that makes documents hard to access and share. A good DMS integrates seamlessly with the software you need to get things done—from email to word processing to customer relationship management (CRM) systems.