HCL Connections Reviews

The status updates and the file components are valuable features. Also, we use the profiles a lot to identify people in the organization, to find new talent and for stuff like that.

Sometimes, I've been able to put a face to a name through their profile, connect with people who are other people's connections and find information faster.

There are already forms in there and I like that. Addition of the workflow and Salesforce integration would be nice. We use Salesforce a lot, i.e., both audio and video content. Similarly, IBM Sametime would also be nice.

It's very stable; there is no downtime as far as I've seen.

We've got many thousands of users on it, so it's very scalable.

The support was very good.

We were testing on a bunch of solutions. There was one from Microsoft and Oracle. We just found this one to be the most feature-rich and also it fit our organization's needs.

I was involved in the setup process to an extent. It was quite complex. There's a lot of components of the IBM Connections, i.e., the WebSphere Application Server, the DB2 database environment and other different items. It's not something that you can just click and get through the next stage.

Do your research, but give IBM Connections a full tryout. Do a PoC and I think you'll be happy.

Relationship is the most important criteria while selecting a vendor. We want somebody who is going to be there and listen to our needs/feedback.

From a Connections standpoint, the most valuable features are:

• Social collaboration file sharing.
• Being able to network within the company.
• Being able to find subject matter experts within the company.
• Being able to supplement our social portal, by surfacing Connections content back to our departmental portal pages.
• Being able to have a one-stop social portal, but also having Connections alerts on that page.

It has really changed the way people work:

• File sharing.

• Getting away from shared drives.

• Being able to set up communities for information.

• Being able to empower business units to basically leverage support for their business units, e.g., the HR communities, benefits communities, and those kind of departmental communities; training communities within our organization.

I would love for the communities to be more row-based, where you could have more of a community, so that you could set up the email alerts to be mandatory for some of the communities and to be standard for the others; those kinds of functionalities.

We've had a few issues, but overall the stability has been pretty good. Probably, my confidence level in the stability is around 75-80% at this point.

We've had some PMRs around some of the docs loading slowly, editing and formatting. We have open PMRs. We're trying to get those closed now.

It has massive scalability.

The technical support level is very good and they've always been very responsive.

When we got our portal, we figured out that we really needed to supplement it with more of a community type of layout and empower the business units a little bit more. Every department didn't need a department page, but we had so many other smaller departments that needed a way to communicate and collaborate with each other.

I was involved in the setup process. It was probably moderately complex because of the number of servers that needed to be set up in the test and production environments. It eventually ended up being about 16 servers between the test and production environments; it was complex to keep all of them in sync.

We briefly looked at Microsoft SharePoint but we are heavy IBM customers, so we went down that path.

In general, stability, support and functionality are the most important criteria when selecting a vendor.

Start slow - “Don't try to boil the ocean” is one of IBM's phrases - but basically plan and scope it out. Take your time and make sure you have all of your training in place, ahead of time.

File sharing is the number one feature. Profiles would probably be second, but I think file sharing, by far, is the most important aspect of it. I can have a document, or whatever live file I want; I can have it everywhere. It can follow me everywhere. It's like our private cloud. Then come the profiles; being able to find people.

The main benefit is ease of use. It is very easy to use.

I'd like to see them take nested files out. I know they advertise that. I think that's bad.

I think they've implemented most of what I've been asking for.

Actually, they could implement Watson in a way that it would determine what I want to see, content-wise, and remove the need to follow people, and thereby take away that "fire hose" of information. In today's model, connections content is like a fire hose. As you follow and network with people, you see all of their activity. Eventually in a large company/large network, important activity can be lost in that stream of "following". I would like to see Watson implemented in such a way that I no longer have to create a network and select people to follow. Watson could interpret the data available and present to me what is most important and needs to be seen by me.

And their testing, when they release new packs, is not where it should be. Their technical support suffers because of it.

It is stable and reliable.

It is highly and easily scalable.

Technical support is average; 2.5/5. They have a tendency to ignore all of the information you give them on the first call, or the case opening. They ask for the information again, in separate replies and calls, and it would just be nice to streamline that process. They make what should take a day take a week.

We didn't have anything previously. We consulted with our user base, and they asked for it. It was a long, drawn-out evaluation, and that's what we ended up with.

Setup is complex. It's loosely documented. We've actually had to bring in IBM resources every time, because the wiki is not all-inclusive on information. That definitely makes it more complex.

It's also not a seamless application. It's dozens of applications rolled into one, and each one is configured differently. That makes it more complex than it has to be.

We looked at Microsoft and Google.

Reliability is the most important criteria when selecting a vendor. We've had past experience with IBM for a long time, so we knew that they were a reliable vendor.

Engage the IBM Professional Services team.

It's easy to use for both developers and end users.

It is easy to integrate to other parts of the company.

I haven't any particular features to request. I would like to see better stability and performance.

Stability is not good. We've been having a lot of problems lately with the fulfillments.

Scalability is okay.

Technical support is not that good at the moment.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup.

At the moment, I would say, "Think hard about it." I want to trust that a vendor is reliable.

Connections is a social business platform whose key value is the richness of the environment, all accessed in one place, including:

• Email
• Files
• Communities
• Forums
• Instant messaging
• Activity Stream
• Blogs
• Bookmarks
• To-dos and activities
• Built-in documents
• Spreadsheet and presentation editors

This is where I go, first thing, to do my work. Everything is now in the cloud thanks to Connections.

Some of the most valuable features of the platform are:

• Communities, where we can create online communities for collaboration. This feature enables us to share expertise quickly and easily, and to generate feedback and comments.
• The new Verse email functionality, which is part of the platform, finally gives me a modern email application with a good UI.
• I value the ability to store and share files in the cloud with folder management and tagging. This makes information easier to share and find; together with a generous allowance of 50GB of personal file storage and then an additional 50GB per community (so, effectively I have unlimited space).

The directors of the company no longer use email for communication with each other. Instead, we use the Activity Stream and @mentions to collaborate and interact (plus old-school phone calls and face-to-face meetings).

I would recommend the following areas for improvement:

• The UI can always be improved. The UI for Verse is fine but some of the rest of Connections still looks a bit dated.
• Admin functions need to be enhanced so that community managers have more information about which communities are active/inactive. The community metrics released this year have helped but there is more work needed.
• There needs to be inter-operability between users on the IBM Connections North American Cloud and the IBM Connections European Cloud.
• The Activity Stream needs to be enhanced to allow the user to customise what is included.
• "Push on" and "Deliver", the much-heralded cognitive capabilities of Verse, have been talked about by IBM but so far only seen as demoware.

Generally, I believe IBM are addressing all of these issues but progress seems very slow.

I have used this solution for over five years.

We did not encounter any stability issues. The platform has been very stable and reliable.

Scalability has not been an issue.

Technical support is through IBM's standard technical support mechanism. The process can be cumbersome at times, but there are ways to escalate and community support is also valuable and helpful.

We have not used another solution.

Setup is very easy. Take out a subscription, click the link on the activation email and you are more or less good to go.

There are basically two subscriptions; one with email included and one without. Subscription is for a minimum of 12 months. There are some add-ons like archiving and audio meetings which you can also take out. I would strongly advise prospective customers to work with an IBM Business Partner who can help explain the licensing and pricing. Special bid pricing is always available for large customers.

We tried both Yammer and SharePoint. We liked Yammer but didn't like SharePoint. Nevertheless, neither had the breadth and depth of functionality of Connections.

To get the most out of this product, the challenge is not technical but changing the way people work, in other words; user adoption. Get that right and Connections can genuinely transform your business

• Activity: Because this app offers a lot of possibilities. Our users use this a lot for meetings and do their work in it (Getting Things Done principle and other methods for doing your work such as lean management/agile stuff).
• Communities: To work together with good collaboration. It offers lots of possibilities to collaborate.
• Activity Stream: See what has happened in our network in a short overview, without having to open up all of the tools you are using in collaboration. You don't need mail notifications anymore!
• Wiki: This is a very useful tool for information and means having fewer documents. We use wikis a lot for our intranet (WebSphere portal) and in the communities to inform people about themes and work.
• File sharing: There is no need to mail documents, but rather we can share them in Connections. The possibility to share individual documents with anyone you choose is a great feature in comparison with home and shared drives.
• Forum: For all questions and discussions is great.

Having all features and tools together in one environment is great and gives the users a lot of possibilities to work in the way that want to. We see a great variety of use with these tools.

We collaborate in a different, more effective way, with less mail and less physical meeting time. It supports the new way of working a lot. This solution makes it possible to work in a different way. In other words, working in a more social way with more collaboration.

I would like to see a better UI and more user-friendly user interfaces. I would like to see them make the tool easier and more intuitive.

We hear complaints from our users that Connections, and other IBM products, are not intuitive.

The users find it difficult to find content. The menu and action buttons are not that simple. It is not easy to understand how to use the solution and what action to take.

Not all the apps work the same way with the same buttons for the same actions. An example is the tag cloud. It is not active or looks the same in each location. Sometimes there is a tag cloud in one app, but it isn't there in another app.

It does not have a very visual look and feel. There is a lot of text and many types of menus and menu columns. The locations can be one at the top, one on the left, one on the right, and each one might have a different look and feel.

Every app has its own way of working and makes it hard to understand why it all works in a different way.

It's hard to explain for me, because I've been using it for many years now. It is very familiar to me now and I'm fully used to it. But first-time users experience lots of confusion about what to use for which purpose, and how to use it.

We have been using this solution for four years.

There were a few stability issues.

There were scalability issues. Maximum volume of activity creates a lot of problems. We need more storage.

I did not have contact with support. Our administrators worked with them. We have had different issues and lots of trouble with technical support in the past.

It took us a lot time to upgrade to new versions. A whole new installation is needed to upgrade. That is a big problem.

It takes a lot of money and time, and that is a great loss. Companies are not willing to do upgrades frequently and are often a year or two behind the new versions. Because of this, they are missing a lot of new features.

Be aware that this is a whole new way of working. The product needs an adoption process to help all users. And you need a goal for the solution. Otherwise, you face the risk that only a few users will learn how to use it.

Start with understanding why you want to use it. Be aware that you need the CEO and the rest of management to embrace it to be successful.

The Files feature gives us the ability to store, share and collaborate on documents. This is, by far, the most used feature.

Helpdesk functionality is now using Forums, so people can ask and answer questions and address issues whenever they wish. Questions can be flagged as such and the correct answer identified.

The Files feature has really changed the way we do business. Instead of attaching documents to email, we send links and collaborate in the tool. This reduces the amount of email each day.

I have found the wiki to be lacking in functionality. We don’t use that piece, so we have another vendor for wiki.

I have used it for seven years.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

Technical support has been very good.

I did not perform the setup.

I did not work on licensing or pricing.

The integration of all tools delivered by the platform itself is the most valuable feature of this product, in addition to its ability to integrate with already available default infrastructure tools within the company (like central directories (LDAP’s), load balancer infra or HTTP infra, which is already in place).

Projects we run within the company are more structured thanks to IBM Connections, our employees have really started to work more openly and projects run within the company are more transparent.

The administration part of the product could be increased. There are, for instance, lots of statistics available for the platform, but you really have to harvest them, as they are available on so many different parts of the product.

It lacks centralized product administration; you have to access different parts of the product. For some administration tasks, you need to be in the web interface of the product; for other administration tasks, you have to be on the command line of the operating system where the product is running, and so on.

Also, the different tools you have to use for day-to-day operations sometimes makes it hard to keep up with the work that needs to be done to keep the product running on a day-to-day basis.

I have used it since the start of the product (January 2007).

The stability is quite high. We have had some crash issues in the past, but IBM Support did a tremendous job for us at the time to find the issues which caused the platform to crash.

The scalability within the product is one of the big plusses, because the underlying infra where the applications are running on is IBM WebSphere. It is one of the best application platforms, which can scale easily in a horizontal and vertical way.

As indicated elsewhere. We haven’t had much interaction with IBM Support, but the times we had to, they really did a tremendous job finding the issues in our environment.

We have used SharePoint in the past, but this product (IBM Connections) is much more a total solution out of the box than SharePoint can deliver, so we migrated all our content from SharePoint to IBM Connections.

The initial setup was quite easy after we had defined the basic parameters the environment had to fulfill.

Regarding pricing, the product is far from the cheapest in the market, but I would advise to never pay the list price. There is a lot of negotiation room from the IBM side. So use that and defend your own position hard!

We used the Gartner “Enterprise Social Platforms” reports to identify the leaders in this market. We used these “leaders” as a list to compare features that were important to use. And so we decided that IBM Connections would fulfill most of our needed functions. At the time we had to make our decision, these were the products in the leader quadrant:

• Liferay
• Jive
• Salesforce Chatter
• IBM Connections
• Microsoft SharePoint

Be very specific on features your business expects form such a platform as this, and then be honest about which products fulfill them the most. Don’t let your IT department decide to buy the product; the business department in your company should make the decision as they are your end users.