Azure DevOps vs. Azure DevOps Server vs. Evernote

Azure DevOps works well when you’ve got larger delivery efforts with multiple teams and a lot of moving parts, and you need one place to plan work, track it properly, and see how everything links together. It’s especially useful when delivery and development are closely tied and you want backlog items, code and releases connected rather than spread across tools. Where it’s less of a fit is for small teams or simple pieces of work, as it can feel like more setup and process than you really need, and non-technical users often struggle with the interface. It also isn’t great if you want instant, easy programme-level views or a very visual planning experience without putting time into configuration.

Incentivized

Azure DevOps is good to use if you are all-in on the Microsoft Azure stack. It's fully integrated across Azure so it is a point-and-click for most of what you will need to achieve. If you are new to Azure make sure you get some outside experience to help you otherwise it is very easy to overcomplicate things and go down the wrong track, or for you to manually create things that come out of the box.

Incentivized

Evernote is an excellent tool for keeping track of client relationships and taking notes. The indexing is excellent, with text in images and text. However, a Wiki might be better for large-scale collaboration. It is a perfect use case for it, and it is hard to beat. To-do lists that need to be tracked or have due dates assigned do not work well in Evernote. It's almost like a library that anyone can add to, edit, tag, and reference. Evernote has a limited checklist function in terms of tasks meant to be kept in one place rather than reviewed and organized over time.

Incentivized

• Utilize Git as a repository to share work between multiple users
• Ability to configure Pipelines to build containers to run virtual deployments and testing scripts.
• Split individual tasks and relate to master documents for quick navigation and ability to see overall picture of project.
• Track status of each task
• Integrate with Git to utilize branches, merging, approvals, history, etc.

Incentivized

• Reporting Integration- Azure boards provides Kanban and other dashboard, their templates for easy management of project.
• Project Pipeline- easy integration and development of CI/CD pipelines, helped in testing, releasing project artifacts.
• Version Control- Integration with Git and code IDE made it easy to share, review our code, fix bugs and do testing.

Incentivized

• Ability to share meeting notes with others (like that it works well with Rocketbook).
• The To-Do list helps with organization and project deadlines.
• Able to sync to multiple devices so you can use it in the office or in the field.

Incentivized

• I did mention it has good visibility in terms of linking, but sometimes items do get lost, so if there was a better way to manage that, that would be great.
• The wiki is not the prettiest thing to look at, so it could have refinements there.
• It could improve the search slightly better.

• Can add more build templates for specific technology requirements
• Can have more features in dashboards which can help dev teams stream line their tasks and priorities
• Can have raise alarm feature in case of any sort of failure in devops pipeline execution

Incentivized

• The free application's feature will meet most users needs, but the Premium plan is expensive.
• Though Evernote lets you create and manage notes effortlessly, its basic plan supports sync between two devices and does not support offline mode.
• Can't export data easily to other applications.

Incentivized

I don't think our organization will stray from using VSTS/TFS as we are now looking to upgrade to the 2012 version. Since our business is software development and we want to meet the requirements of CMMI to deliver consistent and high quality software, this SDLC management tool is here to stay. In addition, our company uses a lot of Microsoft products, such as Office 365, Asp.net, etc, and since VSTS/TFS has proved itself invaluable to our own processes and is within the Microsoft family of products, we will continue to use VSTS/TFS for a long, long time.

Incentivized

Because we are a Microsoft Gold Partner we utilize most of their software and we have so much invested in Team Foundation Server now it would take a catastrophic amount of time and resources to switch to a different product.

Incentivized

I can't really imagine how much they'd have to charge me to make me quit Evernote. I can't really think of any technology that has changed my life as much without going back to email in the 90s, or the introduction of the iPhone. I know I sound ridiculous, but it would be really tough for me to live without it. If I were forced to choose between my smart phone (and keep in mind that I get lost in my driveway) and my Evernote, I'd probably choose my Evernote.

It's a great help to get more information about new feature release and stay updated on what the dev team is working on. I like how easy it is to just login and read through the work items. Each work item has basic details: Title, Description, Assigned to, State, Area (what it belongs to), and iteration (when it’s worked on). See image above.They move through different states (New → Discovery → Ready for Prod → etc.).

Incentivized

For standard users the interface is friendly. but if you are a manager some tools are a little confusing to use, like the query system that you always need to create from scratch. Templates should be more helpful for queries and for standard procedures that you need to duplicate PBIs over time. The search history of Work Items is a little painful to use.

Incentivized

• Basic visual organization - ability to create a notebook and store user notes inside of it.
• Basic easy navigation - You can quickly move in and out of files and notes.
• User intuitive addition - whatever you need to add to your document, it's relatively easy to understand and use.
• We find overall that we still want some functionality in creating better task lists, boards, and other things that we find in Notion - which is the tool that we use as a team notebook/storage space.

Incentivized

Generally issues are by connectivity and not Evernote availability but I have had issues in the past with cross-client consistency of data which Evernote Support has ID'd as bugs that are still unresolved as far as I know

Fast and clean interface. Just upgraded to Evernote 5

When we've had issues, both Microsoft support and the user community have been very responsive. DevOps has an active developer community and frankly, you can find most of your questions already asked and answered there. Microsoft also does a better job than most software vendors I've worked with creating detailed and frequently updated documentation.

Incentivized

I have not had to use the support for Azure DevOps Server. There have never been any issues where I was not able to figure it out or quickly resolve. Our Scrum Master has used support before though, and the service has always been prompt and clear with a customer-focus

Incentivized

I bet you won’t even need to call their support. Their product has never failed me. Simply put. But if you were to email them to gather some details or help, I bet they won’t disappoint you. Don’t worry about the support, it’s the last thing you should worry about this product.

Incentivized

Was not part of the process.

Incentivized

Do research beforehand and, if possible, do a trial run before implementing into production environment.

Incentivized

Make sure you think about your tags. If you end up with multiple similar tags then things aren't grouped together as you might prefer. For instance if you have a tag called Disney and Walt Disney, this will split up your articles. Evernote makes it simple to correct, but I suggest you make sure your users look closely at the existing tags before creating new ones.

Microsoft Planner is used by project managers and IT service managers across our organization for task tracking and running their team meetings. Azure DevOps works better than Planner for software development teams but might possibly be too complex for non-software teams or more business-focused projects. We also use ServiceNow for IT service management and this tool provides better analysis and tracking of IT incidents, as Azure DevOps is more suited to development and project work for dev teams.

Incentivized

In my opinion, DevOps covers the development process end to end way better than Jira or GitHub. Both competitors are nice in their specific fields but DevOps provides a more comprehensive package in my opinion. It is still crazy to see that the whole suite can be used for free. The productivity increase we realized with DevOps is worth real money!

Incentivized

The most similar program I have used is OneNote by Microsoft, and other note taking programs exist like Notepad and Microsoft Word but those programs do not offer syncing like Evernote does. There are newer programs in the space like Dropbox Paper and Google Docs which would be on a list of ones to consider.

Incentivized

• We have saved a ton of time not calculating metrics by hand.
• We no longer spend time writing out cards during planning, it goes straight to the board.
• We no longer track separate documents to track overall department goals. We were able to create customized icons at the department level that lets us track each team's progress against our dept goals.

Incentivized

• It has streamlined the pipeline and project management for our agile effort.
• It has helped our agile team get organized since that is a new methodology being leveraged within the Enterprise.
• The calendar has improved visibility into different OOOs across the project team since we all come from different departments across the larger organization.

Incentivized

• Evernote has allowed our school's over 3000 students and staff members to work more efficiently instead of spending time on making physical notes, clicking pictures, and uploading them to the cloud in order to share them
• The investment in Evernote Premium has also allowed for heavier files to be attached in each note such as student work that allows teachers to be certain that students have followed deadlines and finished assigned tasks
• Evernote has allowed our school to smoothly transition in and out of online learning as the local COVID-19 protocols change and student work requires one platform to be based on throughout

Incentivized