Gaining Your Effective EDGE™

with Microsoft OneNote 2007®

OneNote Best Practices Whitepaper

Provided by

Microsoft OneNote is an application that allows you to create, store, organize and share your notes. OneNote is part of the Microsoft Office suite, but does not come standard with all installations and you may need to purchase it separately. This whitepaper focuses on how to best use OneNote with your EDGE system.

OneNote offers some distinct advantages over the Notes application in Microsoft Outlook, including:

• You can create notes that contain document attachments, graphics, web links, audio clips, etc. using OneNote. Notes in Outlook are text and weblinks `only.

• You can organize and tag your notes so that information is easier to find. OneNote also has a strong search feature so that you can locate information across notebooks.

• You can easily share OneNote information with other team members and collaborate simultaneously in a document. If you have notes you would like to share for projects or other work, it is easy to do with OneNote.

• You can easily share information between OneNote and Outlook including creating Tasks from Notes or creating Notes for a meeting.

• Notes in OneNote are stored in a separate application file and do not count against the size of your e-mail mailbox. If you are regularly receiving out of space messages from your mail administrator, you might find it helpful to store your notes in a separate application.

Note Taking and Storing Reference Information in Your EDGE System

OneNote can assist you in two separate areas of your EDGE System™. It can serve as your note taking device in the collection phase and/or it can be a powerful reference tool to help you store items you need long term.

As you might remember from the EDGE for Professionals course, we recommend that you use a single note taking device to collect information while you are away from your computer. Many of our clients use a paper notebook, but you could use OneNote for your note collection tool. To determine if OneNote would work well as your note taking device, ask yourself the following questions:

• Can you typically take electronic notes in your meetings or are you in client meetings where electronic note taking might be seen as rude or distracting?

• Is it important for you to be able to search your notes by keyword?

• Do you need to ensure that you have an electronic back up of your notes?

Gaining Your EDGEOneNote 2007 Best Practices

from Effective Edge

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If you can reliably use your laptop to take notes in meetings, then

you could begin using OneNote as your note taking collection

point. Each day, you will want to review the notes you have taken

and use your 4Ds to process the information – Delete or file what

you don’t need, Do it if you can in 2 minutes or less, Delegate it or

Defer it.

As a best practice, if you are going to take notes electronically in

meetings, we suggest that you let the other meeting participants

know so there is no misperception of what you are working on

during the meeting. You might even offer to document everyone’s

actions for the meetings since you will be able to easily pass them

on by turning that note into an e-mail.

Regardless of whether you use OneNote to take notes in

meetings, you can use OneNote as a powerful reference tool so

that you can easily search and share information that you need

to keep for long term reference. OneNote organizes information

around the familiar scenario of notebooks with different sections.

Each section can have many pages. You can easily add information

to OneNote by typing it in, inserting files, clipping graphics, adding

voice notes, etc.

Because information in OneNote can be shared so easily, you may

choose to store all the notes for a project – including key project

e-mails – in your OneNote system instead of in Outlook. Where

you store items should be determined by who needs access to

them and what tools they have. For example, an HR related e-mail

that you would not want others to see should be stored in Outlook

where only you have access to them. However, meeting notes and

background about a project that needs to be shared easily within a

team would be better stored in OneNote, assuming that the entire

team has access to the program.

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Using OneNote with Your EDGE System

One common use of OneNote is to take electronic notes in a meeting

rather than writing them down on paper and transcribing them later.

Creating Meeting Notes in OneNote

Using OneNote, you can easily create notes for any meeting and link

them to the appointment in Outlook. To create meeting notes:

1. Open your meeting in Outlook.

2. On the Outlook ribbon, click the Meeting Notes button on the

OneNote tab.

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OneNote UsersWebsite

For general information on how to use OneNote effectively, refer to the

Getting Started tutorial on the Microsoft website:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/

HA100325211033.aspx

Check it out!

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A new meeting notes page will be created in OneNote.

The details of the meeting appear at the top of the note and there is a section for you to add your notes at the bottom. If you want to view the appointment in Outlook, you can click the Link to Outlook Item hyperlink.

When you have completed your notes for that meeting, you can file them by dragging the page tab on the right hand side to the appropriate Notebook and section tab on the left hand side of the screen.

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Creating Tasks from OneNote

One advantage of this technique is that you can easily create Tasks from OneNote and send them to your Outlook system. To create a Task from your notes:

1. Highlight the item you need to make a Task in OneNote.

2. Press CTRL+SHIFT+K on the keyboard or click the Task icon on

the tool bar to create a new Outlook Task.

3. Select the appropriate Category and Due Date.

4. Choose Save and Close.

The link to your note in OneNote is added to the Task. You can open

the OneNote page by double-clicking on the link.

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A flag will appear next to the Task in OneNote to indicate that

there is a corresponding Task in Outlook. From OneNote, you can

open the task by right-clicking on the flag icon and choosing Open

Task in Outlook.

When you have completed the Task, you can mark it complete

in either application and it will display as complete in the other.

To mark a Task complete in OneNote, click on the flag and it will

change to a check mark.

If you want to remove a Task from a note, right-click on the flag

and choose Delete Outlook Task.

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Creating Notes from Other Applications

We often distract ourselves during the day by thinking about one thing

while trying to work on something else. OneNote gives you the ability to

quickly create a Side Note so that you can clear your head and focus on

what is in front of you.

In any application, you can press the Window key (ÿ)+M to create a Side

Note.

You can then turn that item into a Task, other Outlook item, or save the

Note. Side Notes are stored in the Unfiled notes section of OneNote.

Turning an Outlook E-mail into a Note

If you receive an e-mail that you would like to store in OneNote:

1. Open the message.

2. Click the Send to OneNote button on the Ribbon.

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3. Drag the note page tab (right-hand side) to the appropriate

workbook and section tab (left-hand side) to store it in the

desired location.

Sending a Note as an E-mail

To send a OneNote page to someone else by e-mail:

1. Locate the page you want to share.

2. Click the e-mail button on the toolbar or press

CTRL+SHIFT+E to create an e-mail message from the note.9

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3. Add the name(s) of the recipient(s) and send the message. The

recipient(s) will receive the note in the body of the e-mail as text

and they will also receive the OneNote document as an attach-

ment. They will only be able to open the attachment if they have

the OneNote application.

Sending Notes to Other Applications

Often, you will need to create a more complex document from some-

thing that started as a Note. You can easily turn Notes into a Microsoft

Word document or a blog article.

1. Select the note you want to turn into a document.

2. From the menu, choose File, Send To, Microsoft Office Word or

Blog.

3. If you choose Blog, follow the prompts to associate your blog with

OneNote for the first time.

Sharing Notes with Others

One of the key advantages to OneNote is the ability to easily share notes

and collaborate with others. You can easily e-mail Notes to others, but

you can also share entire workbooks or create live sharing sessions10

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where multiple people can work in a document simultaneously.

One sharing technique is to share a notebook with other users.

This allows anyone with access to that notebook to make changes

at any time. To share a notebook with other users:

1. Choose Share, Create Shared Notebook from the menu.

2. Select the storage location. If multiple people will be using

the notebook, a shared server location is ideal.

3. Give the Notebook a name.

4. Select the path to the folder and choose Create.

5. OneNote will ask if you want to e-mail anyone about the

new shared notebook. You can choose to e-mail the link or

to not.

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When invitiing others to share a notebook, many people are able to edit

the notebook at one time and the edits will sync in real time. Once the

link to the notebook is e-mailed to others, editing may begin immediately

and changes will be synced.

OneNote Mobile

Like Notes in Outlook, you can synchronize your OneNote information

with your Windows-mobile based Smart Phone by using the OneNote

Mobile application. This free software comes with OneNote 2007 and

allows you to access your information when you are on the road. Like

most mobile soft ware versions, the functionality is more limited and

hand writing recognition is limited.

For assistance in setting up the OneNote Mobile application, see the

Quick Start Guide on the Microsoft website (http://office.microsoft.com/

en-us/onenote/HA100325211033.aspx).

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