I'm new to Joplin, but am curious if it would be the right tool for my use case, and if so, what would be the best way to implement it.
I'm supporting a small team of 10-15 individuals, and I need a better way for them to store and organize links, PDFs, supplier, and vendor data (mostly contact details, but some other random bits of info too).
Currently it's all stored in HTML on a local server that they all have access to, but the data changes pretty frequently, and every time a contact or email address changes, or a new vendor is added, someone with an understanding of HTML has to do the update (me). I think a shared notebook could suffice, and would be much easier for anyone on the team to update as needed, since Joplin appears to support html, markdown, and rich-text editing in a simple WYSIWYG interface.
My question is about how to setup synchronization. Do I need to run an instance of Joplin Server, or is it sufficient to have everyone synchronize to the same shared directory on our local network? Are there any noteworthy pros or cons to either option?
Joplin Server may be of interest if the group need to collaborate on a single note at the same time. The synchronization is said to be faster as other targets (Dropbox, WEBDAV).
Synchronizing all clients to the same central repository may work if each client do not sync every minute (due to the attachments size, the network bandwidth may be limited and cause errors).
If two notes have changed, Joplin client will move the updated node from the target to a 'Conflicts' folder. You can then compare the two notes.
Note that Joplin may keep an history of each note, and support out-of-the-box End-to-end encryption. Means the content on the shared directory may be encrypted.
Note that all clients will share all the complete repository. Each client can create different profiles (one shared, one personal). Switching profile is easy and works well.
The 'simple Backup' plugin may support to have a local, regular backup. Some other plugins may be worth a try too, e.g. to colorize, sort tables.
I would recommend to test carefully the sync process, adding a new client only after validation that everything works fine for the current users.
Your colleagues may take advantage of the mermaid, plantuml capabilities to illustrate their notes.