Sharing ALL OneNote files on server

[Disnoid]

I am working on a massive note taking archive for my company, and am
wondering if OneNote is even the correct program for this job.

My company answers many "Request for Proposals" (RFPs) from potential
clients. Currently, for every question asked, the sales team searches through
multiple old RFPs to locate the answer and then copy and pastes it into the
new RFP. Many times they will have to go through multiple documents before
finding the answer they are looking for. This takes them days if not weeks.

I proposed making a single archive of every answer we have ever given to
every question we have ever been asked. Each of those answers would then be
catagorized by topics such as "Services," "Architecture," "Training,"
"Support," etc. Then they could easily search in one location to find the
answers to their question.

Someone suggested OneNote for this project, and after a day of getting
familiar with the program, and inputing many of the questions from old RFPs,
I'm starting to question if this will work.

I want the Sales team to be able to access all the files from OneNote at
anytime, day or night. I would also like for them to be able to edit any of
the notes that they feel are no longer accurate. Is there a way to export the
entire database to make it available on our network server? Everything I've
come across seems to only allow me to export individual pages, not the entire
database. Is OneNote the program I should be using? Is there another program
that would be better, or interface with OneNote. My IT department offered
using SharePoint, but I'm not sure if that's the way to go either. Any
suggestions?

 

[Patrick Schmid]

OneNote is definitely an option for you, but not OneNote 2003. You
definitely need OneNote 2007 for what you are trying to do. 2007 has a
new fantastic syncing feature that can sync entire notebooks for you
across networks onto multiple computers, keep everything offline, etc.
For some intro about the syncing feature, see
http://blogs.msdn.com/chris_pratley/archive/2006/06/07/621692.aspx

In your particular scenario, you can do one of the following:
a) Store all your notebooks (the actual .one files) on a file server.
Make sure all your ON users have access to the share(s). All you need to
do then is have each ON installed on the computers of your sales people
open the appropriate notebooks. ON will take care for you of syncing the
contents and keeping them in sync. If your sales people use laptops and
travel to client sites e.g., all they need to do is pack their laptops
and open them at the site to get full access to all open notebooks (and
hence the full database). Any edits they make while there (meaning
offline) will be synced back to the files on your server and to everyone
else once they are back.
b) I haven't tried it yet, but I think you can also store the notebooks
on a sharepoint server. It's just a different storage mechanism than a)
though.

a) is probably the cheapest scenario, as all you need is a file server
that has at least one UNC share for your notebooks.

The only catch with this is that ON 2007 is currently still in beta. It
works well for quite a few people, but it has its collection of crashes,
minor and major annoyances, hassles etc. Especially the new instant
search feature is a major pain to get working. You can get a preview
version from the MS Office Preview site (google "Office Preview").
2007 will be released "early next year" in retail. If you are a volume
license customer, you might be able to get it a month or two before the
retail version is out.
The beta is stable and reliable enough for you to give it a try and see
if it would fulfill your needs. You'll have to make the call yourself
though whether you want to roll it out while still in beta (especially
with zero tech support from MS during the beta phase).

If you get the beta and need any help with getting your scenario
realized, just post again.

Patrick Schmid

 

[Disnoid]

Thank you very much Patrick. You seem to have answered all of my questions. I
appreciate it.

Disnoid

 

[arasu]

Take a look at ndxCards (http://www.ndxcards.com ). It is a note taking
program that lets you organize by subjects, keywords etc. To top it
off, you can use their outlining tool to get a jump on drafting
proposals that use the notes directly.

I use the individual version, but had heard that they have a corporate
version.