Item: OneNote
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with OneNote

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

When switching between WFH and Office environments it’s important that I have a way to access the notes I take in an environment vs the other. In addition, it’s quite nice to have sub categories to organize the notes per a topic (e.g. epic, feature, tool, etc) plus pages with specific topics relative to each epic, feature, tool, etc. e.g. meeting A about Feature X, discussion B about Tool Y. Having extra features like check boxes are quite helpful as well. Another thing I like is that the paragraphs are not linear which means you can create a new paragraph anywhere.
Another great approach is to share notes for one-on-ones because it brings a dynamic page to collaborate.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Shareability
Loose paragraphs
Cloud access

Cons

The UX can be a bit hard to understand on the first usages
Loose paragraphs need to be understood before taking full advantage
Screenshot shortcuts are conflicting with other tools sometimes.

Return on Investment

Having a folder with multiple one on ones is helpful
Having a folder per employee that will address multiple topics is also helpful and keep things organized
Organization is the key feature delivered by OneNote

Usability

Like describe some features that are great like the free / loose / independent paragraphs are great but it can be a bit messy or even hard to understand sometimes.

Alternatives Considered

Apple Notes is also another good simple note taker but still lack a good organization / access to notes when compared to OneNote

Key Insights

Do you think OneNote delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with OneNote's feature set?

Yes

Did OneNote live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of OneNote go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy OneNote again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Microsoft Visual Studio, ReSharper, Azure DevOps Services

Likelihood to Recommend

Having the content stored on cloud helps when switching between environments like when working from home versus working in the office.
Sharing one-on-one notes is quite handful because trackable items can added with a checkbox. Lots of iconography are available to make the content more accessible / engaging / readable.
The loose paragraphs that you can add anywhere are useful once you understand how to use them but it can be annoying sometimes until you get the hang of it.

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

A good option when switching between WFH and Office