Where is my rolodex in the cloud?

July 29, 2013 1:57 PM

My small highly mobile business requires a very basic cloud based address book, preferably with as much free form as possible so that key people in different time zones / locations have 24/7 access to a common address book. Think AZZ cardfile in the cloud. Where is it? All I've found are overtly complex and demanding of what goes on what line and are totally US centric. I am a great believer in KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) and want my keypeople to be able to operate the same way. Salesforce is not my answer. All input gratefully appreciated.
posted by adamvasco to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

You could set up a shared folder in Dropbox (note that sharing a folder gives everyone read-write access to it) and put a spreadsheet there. Or you could use a Google Docs spreadsheet and have that shared with read-write access. Both apps have mobile versions (for Google Docs it's the Google Drive app). You would think there exist contact management apps built on Dropbox or Google Drive, but I'm not sure if there are.

There also appear to be some apps that allow you to share Google Contacts (just Google something like "sharing google contacts" and you'll find them).
posted by Dansaman at 4:18 PM on July 29, 2013

Best answer: What is your small, highly mobile business using for email and calendaring? You could switch to Google Apps and get shared contacts as part of that. Users would simply go to the Contacts option within the Gmail client, then choose "Directory" to get the shared contacts you'd created.

One caveat, though - to create the shared contacts you need to either use a third-party tool or the Google Domain Shared Contacts API! There are plenty of free, easy-to-use third-party tools to do this, though.

I'm a Google Apps deployment specialist, so feel free to memail me with any questions you might have.
posted by me & my monkey at 9:57 PM on July 29, 2013

Response by poster: Highrise is interesting. We already use basecamp.
The cost adds up over a year but that is probably me being miserly.
Dropbox spreadsheets no not really.
Google apps not really either.
I want each contact to have a blank page that anyone can add contact info and comments.
The formatting / layout will quickly develop its own style to suit the small team.
Highrise has a lot more that could be incorporated into what I want and bears considering but it is still not the dead simple system I want.
Thanks for the input so far.
posted by adamvasco at 3:17 AM on July 30, 2013

Response by poster: Does anyone have any experiance / feedback with Full Contact ?
posted by adamvasco at 3:24 AM on July 30, 2013