HCL Connections Reviews

The ability to sync my files offline and to share them with colleagues or external people is one of the more important functions. Communities are a popular way of combining blogs, wikis, files, and activities centered on a common objective or subject which proves popular and increases collaboration across people/teams. Recently, the ability to collaborate with external people such as vendors, customers, and third-parties was introduced, which allows us to collaborate outside of network in a secure way.

We are an IBM business partner with circa 80 employees in the UK, India, and home workers. I've found that it increases communication between these dispersed people. Also, I find that I can assist others when help has not been asked for or expected by means of seeing other people's interactions. For example, on a number of occasions, sales people have been pitching to customers whom I have dealt with or had conversations with years before. I have been able to add valuable input, because I have been following the sales people, the tags, or the community where the content was discussed.

• Easier way to add external users
• Easier UI customization

We have been using this solution for over five years.

There are often deployment challenges, but often these tend to be with the integration points such as LDAP, network, single-sign-on, etc. These tend to be issues that need to be worked out together with other teams

If IBM Connections is properly tuned with the environment and load in mind, it tends to be stable.

The WebSphere middleware allows the number of nodes running the applications to be scaled horizontally and vertically with relative ease. WebSphere has been doing this for many years and is doing it very well.

Raising PMRs with IBM tends to be a little hit and miss. I personally have had good service. If you are well versed with the application and its components, then troubleshooting is much easier. Many companies see real value enlisting the services of an IBM business partner who knows the applications, the databases, and is the first port of call for problems.

From IBM, I would rate technical service as very good.

Deployment can be a little complex, but a lot of this relates to the network, corporate LDAP, and security requirements. These can have an effect on the deployment of any application. IBM Connections is a mature product and the deployment path is well trodden and more importantly, it is well documented.

I implemented our internal deployment myself and I also deployed it for customers.

For us, the most valuable feature is really the threaded conversations, because we don't get a threaded conversation with other tools. We are looking at a two-way dialog and how we can help enable that.

For us, at this point, it opens up a door to large broadcasted messages, and larger forms of engagement.

For us, the biggest thing we would like to see in the next release is integration with SharePoint.

We've had some load time and performance issues with concurrent users. The page was just not coming up.

We haven't run into scalability issues, just because we don't really have high usage, overall.

I have not used technical support.

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Have business-level use cases before anything else. Also, think about integration, and where you want to integrate, and then also just basic usability.

The most important feature of IBM Connections is that it is a Social Collaboration suite covering nearly all aspects of modern enterprise communication and collaboration. As a comprehensive set of Enterprise 2.0 tools, Connections can serve many purposes in an enterprise and so be useful for many people inside. It is therefore superior to any single-purpose tools that sometimes might be better in specific functions, but are only useful for a small group. The reduction of information silos is one of the most important challenges enterprises are facing today and it can only succeed if everybody in the enterprise is using the same platform for open communication and collaboration.

The whole organization benefits from one of the most important key features of Connections: It provides context to everything either by organizing related information, data and files in communities or by simply adding tags to persons and all kinds of data. Context also means that conversations and discussions happen exactly where they belong and not somewhere else (e-mail, phone, ...).

The wiki is the weakest part of Connections, compared to standalone wiki solutions. It does not offer customizable templates for pages, a feature users often ask for. I would love to see improvements in this area.

I have used it since 2007.

I have not really encountered any deployment, stability or scalability issues. Stability and scalability are excellent due to the underlying platform, IBM WebSphere. Deployment on premises takes between 3-5 days and requires good, skilled and experienced technicians. Deployment in the IBM cloud is easy. Major upgrades on premises are sometimes challenging and should only be done by experienced technicians.

Technical support is good, but could be better, as always.

Previously, we mainly used email, which for collaboration purposes has a lot of disadvantages: It has no structure (personal email folders are not a collaboration tool), it is highly redundant, you neither know the status or the context of a message and finally, it is another silo. Sharing is way more efficient than distributing.

Initial setup is complex because you have to deal with installation and integration of several systems: WebSphere Application Server, HTTP server, relational database, LDAP, Tivoli Directory Integrator for syncing user data between LDAP and Connections, IBM Cognos for BI, e-mail integration.

We provide implementation of Connections as a service and did it ourselves.

Some IBM business partners offer very attractive prices if you combine Connections licenses with one of their add-on solutions.

IBM Connections is a software product but deploying Connections is not mainly an IT project. You should know WHY you are deploying it and which GOALS you want to achieve with it. Otherwise, it will fail even if the infrastructure is running perfectly.

The ‘Community’ feature is the most valuable. It is a good place to gather a web home page, wiki, blog, forum, file library, bookmark, tag, or @ notice.

It is a good product for making improvements across departments and in communications. People can share knowledge and files, and other people can search and learn.

• It is not easy to create a company’s Intranet home page since the home page is the first page the user lands on. IBM Connections can create many communities which link to the home page, but not the homepage itself.
• You still cannot search the contents of files inside, like words in MS Word, PowerPoint, or Adobe PDF.
• There is no project tracking function. The ‘Activity’ function is not a good feature. We need a Trello-like project management function for agile management methodology, but not only the current ProjExec function.

We have been using the solution for about eight years.

We did not encounter any issues with stability.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

I would give the technical support a rating of 8/10.

Previously we used IBM’s TeamRoom. We changed because IBM changed the strategy from TeamRoom to Connections.

The setup is not complex. But if you add other products together, like Sametime, it will need more customization. If people use the SaaS version, called IBM Connections Cloud, then it is straightforward.

The price should be lower. The pricing model should count concurrent users, not named users. Otherwise, a large company will be reluctant to use it as there are too many named users.

We evaluated Slack, MS Office 365, Facebook's Workplace, and Google G-Suite.

I was looking for an integrated product which is easy to use for a low price. Slack has the ‘Intranet home page’ functions, too. The per user price is higher than IBM Connections Social Cloud.

My company uses Office 365, and we can therefore use SharePoint, Yammer, and Teams for free because of our Exchange server subscription. But those functions are not integrated like IBM Connections.

SharePoint is very difficult for end-users to create Intranet home pages or departmental home pages.

Facebook's Workplace is easy to use as a consumer version, but no blog/wiki is available, like IBM Connections. But its price is the lowest.

I cannot successfully try Google G-Suite. For the initial setup step, G-Suite asked me to log in with my domain name server to prove that I own the domain name (my company’s domain name). However, I am an evaluator, and not an IT administrator, so I cannot try it.

IBM Connections is a good product with many functions. People should refer to the best practices to guide the company in how to use it. For example, when to use Blog, Wiki, Forum, Activity, Files, or Bookmark.

The Homepage/Activity Stream keeps you to up-to-date as to what is happening throughout your organization.

I like the ability to create, edit, and share files from your desktop, or mobile app, anywhere, anyplace, with everyone.

Finding expertise becomes so much easier, especially for international companies who reside all over the world.

Certain solutions aren't solely applicable for one country, but often these solutions can be re-applied to other offices as well.

Sharing knowledge on IBM Connections will give you access to tap into all the knowledge that is accessible in your organization across the world. If they find a solution for an issue in the office in Italy, the office in Sweden can reuse that solution by finding that expertise on Connections.

Activities:

• The Connections Mobile app doesn't work in the same manner as the web version. Sorting is different and not all options are available in the mobile version.
• There are limitations on how big an activity can become, but there is no functional check to let the end user know. When your activity becomes really big, it can become unreliable and very slow.
• There are no summary options for an activity. A print-to-PDF overview would be handy.
• Again, when the activity become very big, it is not easy to keep track of what happens within the activity. (Kudos Boards from ISW is a good alternative for this.)

Files:

• File sync for folders (coming in Connections 6.0)
• File sync for community files and folders
• Option to make individual files available to external users
• Option to make individual files publicly available by using a password
• Invite external users based on an email address

I have used this since the first beta came out in 2008.

In some scenarios, slow performance can be a tough point to tackle. Regarding stability, there were no issues there. Everything runs on WebSphere, which is a pretty reliable platform.

There were no scalability issues, but the effort to add extra nodes in a running configuration can be cumbersome.

Level 1 support sometimes can be a tough hurdle to tackle. Once you have reached Level 2 and Level 3 support, technical support is pretty good.

We were using Lotus Quickr. It was old, slow, and had a very small user base. There was not much potential.

The initial setup is a tough journey. Once you get the hang of it, it is pretty doable. However, it takes some perseverance.

We did not look at alternatives. We are IBM Business partners. We help customers implement IBM Connections.

Keep your eyes open for IBM Connections 6.0 and the future version of Connections, Connections Pink. This version will move away from the IBM technology stack and take the route of micro-services. Connections will enter the world of Docker, MonogDB, Node.js, CFC, Redis, Muse, etc.

The complete software will be rewritten for this new technology. Also, the on-premises implementation will depend on the cloud offering. Updates will be seamlessly pushed towards your on-premises deployment. This technology will make big, clunky upgrade projects become a thing of the past.

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.

I think that the main tools, after file management, are Activities, Community and online documentation management with IBM DOC (embedded in the system). There are many other services such as Blog, Wiki, Forum, Survey, Chat and Conference, Audio/Video, Profiles. Those services are also important, but they are not immediately implemented because other applications or services provide that functionality.

Our customers believe that Activities, Community and IBM DOC are the features that provide particular value.

All files managed by my team are generated directly in Connections, initially as personal files but shared with each other. Ultimately, files are moved into the community for reference and so shared with all members of the team.

All technical documentation is written in the wiki, which is now the central point of reference about everything necessary to work, both on the project and knowledge sharing.

The improvement's are could be more flexibility to manage files and to have a sync file area more intuitive and which respects the characteristics of other similar solutions. That feature should be also only for personal files.

I have used IBM Connections on premise since its birth. I have used IBM Connections Cloud for three years.

All versions are developed on WebSphere Application Server. When we have a well-done installation and configuration, I can confirm that it is very stable and scalable for large environments.

I have absolutely not encountered any scalability issues.

IBM support consists of several levels and we can also engage them by calling technical people directly. In some cases, IBM directly develops a fix for the system; later, this fix might become part of a future update.

Basically, I worked with IBM and the IBM Lotus product for many decades, but I also know Microsoft products, such as SharePoint, etc. I also know many new collaboration tools, but I can assert that the level of integration among the IBM products is unmatched nowadays. They are at a level that other products don't have, even if some products seem to be easier to use or more beautiful to see.

Regarding initial setup, I distinguish between the on-premise and cloud editions:

- Cloud: Everything is active immediately and you can focus directly on the product and its features.
- On premise: There is a lot of work to install and configure the environment and it depends upon which installations you need. Initial setup might be simple or complex (for example in a cluster environment, high availability, large distribution and so on).

The licensing for the two editions is more or less the same, although I think IBM solutions are cheap for the value they provide. However, the market does not seem to acknowledge this point.

As I’ve written, in the enterprise world, the competition for this product comes from Microsoft and its solutions. I do not think that integration with all services is optimal for Microsoft today. So, I chose IBM Connections and the IBM collaboration tool turned things around.

Adoption is the key that makes the difference. If you install/use it without a clear adoption plan, this solution becomes a Black Hole, which is the case for all kinds of these solutions.

We have developed a system of adoption for both solutions, and I think that in most cases, the cloud solution of IBM Connections will be the best choice. The on-premise edition is useful only if you require significant customisation and integration with internal legacy applications.