HCL Connections Reviews

We use the wikis extensively, along with activities for managing projects and sharing information globally.

Our productivity has increased by using IBM Connections. For example, an engineer in Asia used to feel disconnected and missed opportunities to contribute. By using IBM Connections, he was able to have visibility into challenges other engineers had in the US. Our US-based engineer was very pleased when he arrived to the office in the morning and saw some options presented by the engineer in Asia.

Our users would like to see more document management capabilities in the base IBM Connections package (without having to install extended components). Users also prefer using a traditional folder structure for organizing content and are not used to tags (might be a learning curve or resistance to change).

Our users are having difficulty grasping the concept of tags and tag clouds. They are used to placing items into folders for organization. I have attempted to explain how tags can provide the same functionality for locating content. I also showed how tags can be associated to one or more tags, which is not possible in a folder structure. I think it was resistance to change more than the inability in understanding tagging.

Without purchasing the additional add-on for document management, Connections offers the ability to make new versions, lock a file,etc. Users would also like to be able to do a check-in, check-out, and co-edit with revision control.0

I have used it for four years.

I have not encountered any stability issues.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

The technical support is excellent from both our vendor, The Rock Team, and from IBM support. The technical staff at IBM are very knowledgeable and addressed all support calls efficiently and expeditiously. There is always great communication and details provided for all support solutions.

Our prior tool was the SAP NetWeaver Portal. The interface for IBM Connections is much better and is better suited to support organic growth of content in an easier-to-navigate, user-friendly interface. IBM Connections provides better search capabilities for locating content.

The setup was not complex. We did have a bit of a challenge that was overcome in setting up SSO using our Microsoft Windows Active Directory.

We also considered Microsoft SharePoint. After further investigation, we realized that IBM Connections and SharePoint are very different. The social capabilities that promote organic growth among users was the strength that IBM Connections had over SharePoint. We wanted more than SharePoint’s strength with document management and deficiency in social capabilities.

User acceptance is very important. I recommend looking at the processes within an organization and then identify the alignment of IBM Connections tools to support the processes. Then, migrate users into IBM Connections in a phased approach by showing each process area the benefit of using IBM Connections to support their process. User buy-in and acceptance is improved when users can see the immediate benefit, while at the same time discovering the power of IBM Connections for other tasks.

Ability to quickly setup a organisation in connections cloud and get them working on the full set of collaboration features - from Communities, advanced file sharing, Blogs, wikis, activity streams and good old e-mail (now via the great new way to work - IBM Verse!).

Training, education and the development of use cases is a key factor in the adoption of any Social business Solution. With IBM connections cloud you are able to get the users active in the solution from day one and start developing Social Solutions that deliver real business outcomes!

Lots!!

Directory of expertise, using communities to connect internal with external parties, merger and acquisition work and most of all - find out things in the company that you did not know where happening!

Communities, File sharing andkeeping up to date via the Connections activity stream.

IBM Connections Cloud - 2 years +

As it is cloud based and easy to onboard user, no real issues encountered!

None

None

Customer Service:

Very good!

Technical Support:

Excellent

I have used both Jive and MS Sharepoint in the past - I find Connections a lot more intuitive and easy to get people using the solution!

No real issues encountered

mix of both in house and external consutants (with myself as the main co-ordinator).

To get people who have not used any Social technology using the environment on a daily bases.

YEs, Connections On Premise. Due to the IT strategy of Cloud first, we decided to go with IBM Connections Cloud.

Start small, develop use cases with the usser community. Appoint champion users and train them in new ways of work.

Employ an experienced group of consultants who know IBM Connections and IBM Connectiosn Cloud

Fully integrated solution, love the social element of Profiles, Files and Activities all securely accessed on Mobile !

Communities of practise have gained value in communicating and sharing knowledge and improving processes using e.g. Wikis

Interface, but that has had some make-over in v.5 which has now been released. Portal can complement the UI if needed I guess. Licensing !!

3 years

It's a complicated setup, but then again it's built for enterprise and volumes. Adoption is always going to be a challenge, changing the way people work. So many people are still stuck in the email paradigm. Deployment is unique per organisation.

No, but some minor browser related issues especially with Microsoft IE.

No

Customer Service: Business Partners like ourselves often run with this task. Logging of PMR's can be a lengthy bothersome processTechnical Support: Hard to say, don't often deal with technical support as mentioned, we're a Business Partner and often provide this service.

Email, improved efficiency

Complex, leave it to the experts

We're a BP so in-house

Wikis and Blogs in combination with Activities, I like to work at home, in my office and mobile without thinking about it. I can access the solution through my tablet, iPhone, BB and Browsers.

We save a lot of mails to big groups. When we want to discuss new ideas or documents, we share them and discuss them online. No one must merge multiple mail attachments after days of changes into a final one. Files and versioning saves us time and bandwidth on the mail servers.

4.5 years

Connections is based on long developed software (WebSphere, DB2, TDI) and need some hardware resources, but when you know the basics of this software it works very stable.

No

High scalable up to multiple hundreds of thousands of users. My biggest deployment handles about 80,000 users.

We used lots of products like wordpress to blog, docuwiki as wiki, bugtracker, todo apps and so on, but Connections delivers all of it integrated in one solution.

Complex, you have to install all prerequisites like WebSphere, DB2, TDI, HTTP Server.