HCL Connections Reviews

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.

• Wikis and Files: Work well for process documentation and reference material.
• Blogs: Used for department announcements.
• Bookmarks: Used on communities and on the staff’s “my page” to access frequently used links.

Connections has assisted our business area with our Knowledge Management
initiative. It provides us with a tool that the staff can use to quickly find the information needed to process their day-to-day tasks and assist our customers. It has also been valuable as a collaboration tool within our area and encourages our reps to participate within the community to ask questions and share their expertise.

For our Knowledge Management initiative, it would benefit to have capabilities within the tool to have one single source of information that allows access to the information needed based on the user’s role within the organization. We have seen other KM products that offer this feature.

The editors that are supported by the product each offer features that would be useful, but there isn’t one editor that offers all of the desired features.

We originally implemented 3.0 in 2011 but most recently upgraded to 5.5 on 10/3/16.

I did not encounter any stability issues.

I did not encounter any scalability issues.

IBM scheduled weekly - sometimes bi-weekly - meetings to review the status with open PMRs. They also provided on-site support during the final migration before our “go-live” date.

The support provided through PMRs was helpful, though there were some issues with incomplete, confusing, and incorrect information within the installation documentation.

Also, the support provided was based on the level of the PMR. The level 3 PMRs were handled at a more detailed level, while the level 2 PMRs often required us to provide basic background information and other details that had previously been provided through working other PMRs. These PMRs were more lengthy and repetitive, and required additional fiddler trace reports.

We were looking for a KM platform that was easier to use and included social collaboration.

The setup was more complex, as it was not an initial setup but rather an upgrade, which required migration from MSSQL to DB2.

For pricing, look to see if it is site licensed, or by unit. A unit can be users, core, etc. Are there costs to run this as a cold site, in the event of a D/R situation? Are there volume discounts involved? Look at competing products that do similar functions and compare pricing. Look to see if you have corporate discounts.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Yammer and SharePoint.

I recommend taking advantage of any offers for IBM staff to come onsite for adoption workshops for the staff using the platform. This was a helpful step in our rollout to the staff. I would also recommend that they be prepared to provide ongoing support after rollout, to be successful with adoption and to ensure that the staff has the information they need to be comfortable with navigating in the tool.

• File versioning
• Variety of content and file types that a user can share (images, gif, documents, embedded videos, and so on)
• Valuable search to find archived documents

The platform allows in a very easy way to create community and start collaborating. This value has been easily recognized by the users, above all for managing cross-department projects.

Some departments had a latent need of communication inside the company and they are now starting organizing autonomously, managing their own communities, spreading news and launching surveys. Nevertheless, this result was made possible only with a custom application, able to notify specific users punctually. This particular behaviour that is not provided by the platform, being a social platform, is however a basic need for every company, that has the task to inform its employees and be certain about their reception of the most important messages.

The management of technical projects was facilitated by the creation of communities in which the internal customer of the project and technical teams were able to work on the same project together, although not part of the same hierarchical department.

The platform is too dispersive and rigid. It should improve in usability and user interface customization by the user (personalized menu, communities to keep close at hand, always available files, and so on).

There are too many applications that might be replaceable with each other. Excessive opportunities of choice make adoption difficult. You find it difficult to choose the best ways to make sharing actions. For example:

• Sharing of a file: From my personal files and then sharing it to specific communities or directly inside a community?
• Communication inside a community: Should I use the status updates of the community or blog or forum?

Having tools that are able to manage slightly different shades of communication purposes is not always an advantage. A common user often feels disoriented and induced to use simpler tools.

Moreover, the status updates section in a community remains completely hidden. By contrast, if we want to read the recent status updates, we can no longer see other applications available only in the general view. We are used to a unique landing page in every collaborative group, in which we can see immediately recent conversations (LinkedIn and Facebook groups are both structured in this way).

These problems can be overcome by governing the initial stage of installation and choosing in advance which applications to release and when.

My company has been adopting Connections since January 2013.

Episodes of instability are not uncommon. For this reason, talking about on-premise installations, it is essential to have a good technical partner, if it is not possible to acquire internally the specific technical competence.

We had issues with scalability, including the need to increase the maximum weight of the files and the limit of the size of the community, but they were quickly handled.

We are not completely satisfied with the technical support. The platform often presents product weaknesses and bugs. In the first case, the issues are managed superficially, defined as "product characteristics". In the second case, it is almost impossible to solve problems quickly. We are now directly facing this problem with a specific bug that remains unresolved.

We had tested Yammer before introducing seriously an enterprise social collaboration platform. We preferred IBM Connections because we saw in it the greatest potential in managing different types of communications to pursue different purposes over time.

Initial setup was almost straightforward; handled directly from IBM.

I would recommend that everyone adopt the cloud version. There is too much constant maintenance to be performed on the on-premise version that does not allow focusing on adoption strategies.

Before choosing this product, we also evaluated Yammer, Jive, Social Chatter, and Tibco.

I recommend internal testing of the functionality of the platform to understand the pros and cons compared to the modes of interaction and cooperation that already exist in the company. Then, I would proceed migrating one or two existing processes, launching a driven pilot that should involve an entire team / department. I would strongly recommend a gradual release of applications and training dedicated to each instrument. The platform is too complex to be used entirely from the start.

IBM Connections Profiles are the heart and soul of IBM Connections. It changes the way knowledge is shared and found by allowing users to identify subject matter experts in their organizations, from there they can either look at the knowledge and content the expert is sharing, reach out and engage with the expert directly, or even reach communities of experts to find the answers they are looking for. It helps the organization to be more productive, reduces the time lost when searching for information, and allows employees to build their own brand inside the organization, resulting in better talent retention and employee engagement.

IBM Connections Activities provides a platform for getting things done by allowing teams of people to collaborate and share to do’s and feedback on tasks quickly and transparently, keeping everyone informed and on the same page without the need for frequent meetings and reviews. Once an activity is successfully completed, it can be used as a “blue print” for similar activities in the future, which saves time and allows teams to have more predictable results.

IBM Connections Mobile application and plugins provide users with the ability to collaborate and share information easily from anywhere – their mobile phone, tablet, or their favourite applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, etc.

Important information, like policies, procedures, and corporate templates, has become easy to find and has reduced wasted time and user frustration. Distribution of business reports by sharing them in IBM Connections has not only yielded the obvious result of reduced mail traffic and storage, but also allows users to engage and collaborate more effectively on these reports.

Integration with business functions and processes like internal audits has resulted in better collaboration with external parties (like auditors) and better efficiency in addressing audit findings due to open and transparent collaboration and sharing of documents and feedback (no more missed or lost emails).

Various plugins are available for Microsoft Windows desktops and this adds tremendously to the user experience.

Mac users currently only have File Sync support and no plugins are available for Linux desktop users, leaving these users heavily dependent of the web user interface. Although the web user interface works great and is constantly being improved, the plugins create a more seamless experience.

We have been using the solution for five years.

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

IBM provides good support, and in most cases support is available world-wide through IBM’s network of Business Partners.

IBM Connections has replaced a variety of solutions, including File Shares (shared drives), the company intranet, and the corporate directory. IT also reduced the need for various custom-developed ad-hoc solutions due to its rich set of features.

IBM Connections provides a single solution that offers profiles, communities, file sharing, wikis, blogs, surveys, activities, bookmarks, forums, ideation, activity streams and events. The product is mature, has a very strong business focus, and can be integrated with other business solutions.

Using IBM Connections and all the capabilities it offers, provides users with a single place to go for all their collaboration and knowledge sharing requirements.

Initial installation and setup of the on-premises version of IBM Connections requires specific technical skills. Once the product is installed and configured it is easy to use and users have many options to easily control their user experience.

The IBM Connections Cloud offering provides a quick and easy way to get up and running with Enterprise Social Networking without the need for technical skills and expertise.

We evaluated SharePoint and Yammer.

Work with an IBM Business Partner who has skills and expertise, not only in the installation and configuration of the IBM Connections Suite of products, but also in the implementation and adoption of Enterprise Social Networking and Social Business.

The deployment of IBM Connections has a much lower focus on technical skills when compared with other business solutions. The success of your IBM Connections project will depend heavily on successful integration with everyday business processes and activities and user adoption.

Becoming a successful business using IBM Connections is a journey which requires careful planning and guidance, but the rewards are absolutely worth the effort.

IBM Connections is our primary collaboration platform used for all our internal communications and knowledge sharing. We also use it to work together with our customers.

Using IBM Connections, we have embraced the concept of Working Out Loud to more openly discuss and share content.

I use the Updates page to know what is going on in our company and which projects are running. External access increases collaboration with customers and partners. Online document preview and editing allows for faster co-authoring.

I would like to have more control over the news delivery on the homepage. You now need a third-party app for this. I would also like more information in the overall To Do list. You now have to click More to see where an action item is coming from.

I would like to have more control over the news delivery on the homepage.
You now need a third-party app (we use XCC from Time To Act) for this.
I would also like more information in the overall To Do list. You now have
to click More to see where an action item is coming from. It would be
better that you can see (and sort) from which community/activity a to-do
is coming from. It would be best if you could apply filters to this list.

We did not have issues with stability.

We have not had issues with scalabilily.

Technical support is good.

We were using the cloud version, SmartCloud, but we shifted to on-premises to integrate and extend it more.

You need technical knowledge for the setup, but if you have the right expertise, it is OK.

We implemented in-house, as we are an implementation partner.

Our own ROI was within nine months. We directly benefited from more knowledge sharing (and avoiding re-inventing the wheel) and shorter meetings.

We see IBM Connections as the richest ESN platform on the market today. But it takes time to understand and you need to drive an active adoption program.

Connections is a full-featured enterprise social network solution. Below are some of the features most used by our employees:

• Files and document management, including file sharing and libraries
• Employee profiles
• Communities
• External communities
• Blogs
• Status posts
• Activities

Connections, with its file sharing and lightweight document management capabilities, has helped us reduce the volume of email and network file usage.

Ideally, the product will increment advances from consumer social networks and file sharing tools sooner, as users expectations are formed by the software they use at home and on their devices.

We have used IBM Connections since early 2013, beginning with version 4.0. In 2015, we upgraded to version 5.0. Throughout, we have used the on-premises solution.

In 2016, we extended the platform to external users via external communities.

We have not had any stability problems.

We have not had any scalability problems.

We used a variety of business partner support models and have been pleased with the support.

Prior to Connections, we did not have an enterprise social network solution.

Like any major software implementation, the initial project required planning, resource allocation, vendor management, and communications.

Learn and understand the different product offerings and pricing models and note the difference between cloud, hybrid, and on-premises solutions.

We evaluated Jive and SharePoint.

Do your research and look for the solution that best fits your organization. Ultimately, enterprise social network adoption will be about culture and fit, and not the technology.

• Access to platform resources from all over the world
• Blogs
• Fast search of employees/groups/ communities/employees’ profiles
• Each file entered into the system has a label with the time and the name of the person who uploaded the file
• Document download is registered and visible to the system users who downloaded the file, time when it was downloaded. After updating the document, a new version is created, but previous versions are not deleted.
• List of activities to do
• Private communities with access management
• Integration with IBM Notes, Sametime.

All the features above improve collaboration among employees.

The most noticeable improvement was in the communication between the R&D department and the service department, who until now had no communication tools, despite having an email.

Employees from these departments work on different shifts, so the communication between them was difficult. The improvement in the area of cooperation has also been noticed by trade office workers who have easier access to needed and up-to-date documentation such as KRS, NIP, and REGON marketing materials.

The implemented system was very well used by the HR department. They provided training for staff from various companies among the group, set up communities with access only for training participants, where materials from the workshop and additional information was provided.

The system also helped during the setting up of a company in China. Employees engaged from different locations in Poland and China opened a community where they exchanged documentation and had discussions. This tool has certainly improved the opening of the company in China. The documentation was in one place and was available from anywhere in the world.

We suggested over 40 improvement of the system in 2014, but nothing has changed in the 4.5 version.

After a few months of using the solution, we have prepared document with the biggest failures and features to improve in the system. We have suggested over 40 improvement of the system, we have made PMR in the system:

• Movies with high resolution after uploaded in the community had bad quality, were unreadable, or we couldn’t upload files in AVI or WMV.
• The inconsistency of the editing interface between the various components (different ways of adding images to a wiki page, to a blog, or to a community description)
• Writing in the editor was treated as a lack of user activity. That means that when editing of content in a text editor for a long time, such as editing a wiki page, the session loses its validity during that time and redirects to the login screen. The previously entered content is lost.
• We couldn’t have created subfolders in Files component (after one year we bought Library component, which has possibility to create subfolders). I’m writing about the 4.5 version we had.

We have been using this since 11.2013.

Technical support should be improved. We made a PMR in the system. Afterwards, a person from technical support sent us an email and asked the same questions. Sometimes a few different people asked the same questions about the same PMR.

We tested Yammer for half a year. We switched into IBM Connections mostly because of Connections’ features:

• Own server
• server proxy
• Privacy access layer
• Recommendations and comments function
• Idea management functions, such as monitors channels for idea capture, customer categorization of requests, idea voting, classified idea capture, and request status notes.
• Each file entered into the system has a label with time and person who uploaded the file
• Document download is registered and visible to the system users: Who downloaded the file and when it was downloaded.
• After updating the document, a new version is created, but previous versions are not deleted.

The setup was more complex than straightforward.

I advise only buying a few licenses and test different solutions among a group of employees from different departments with different experience for at least half a year. Then make a list of features they like and don’t like and ask them in what situations the solution will help them with their daily work. After getting the pros and cons of the solution, the decision should be made buying the license.

Before choosing the solution, we considered Yammer.

It is very important to set the proper goal for such an implementation and to verify the goal in the organization.

The next step is to test a few similar solutions by selected employees: Those specialized in different areas of the company, not just IT, but also communication, marketing, HR, finance, and manufacturing.

Then examine the pros and cons of each solution and decide which solution will help in achieving a goal.

I suggest at least three months for testing for each solution. An important issue is to choose the best project management methodology and the communication and project management knowledge of employees responsible for implementation.

The experience of people implementing such solutions in the organization is very helpful during the entire implementation process. In order to function effectively, people, not only those from the IT department, are necessary and need this knowledge.

The key, if not the most important role in this case, is the community manager. He or she:

• Promotes this tool within the organization
• Organizes trainings
• Presents functions
• Present examples of their use
• Promotes good practices regarding the use of this tool in the organization.

After implementation, in each company’s department should appoint one person who will be responsible for departmental data updates.

The most valuable feature is definitely Files. We have totally transferred the way we work, or developed the way we work on information. The ability to upload files into the cloud, the sharing options, and, even better, the commenting options and the @ mentions on the file just eases the workflow dramatically compared to using email and sending attachments back and forth.

It saves a lot of time, includes more people that need to be included and it ensures better quality.

I’m happy with what I saw at a recent conference regarding Connections Pink and Orient Me.

We have had no downtime.

Scalability is okay-ish. We are more or less satisfied with the way it works. No major need for fixing it.

Technical support is great.

We knew we needed to invest in a new solution because we got advice from our business partner and from IBM that opened up our eyes to see the options out there.

Initial setup was complex. We suffered some setbacks on the migration from the on-prem solution to the cloud. We are currently in a hybrid solution and the migration didn't work exactly how it was supposed to; so we had some challenges on migrating.

We looked at Microsoft.

Quality and cost are the most important factors when selecting a vendor.

Just do it.