HCL Connections vs Yammer comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between HCL Connections and Yammer based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Atlassian, Slack and others in Enterprise Social Software.
To learn more, read our detailed Enterprise Social Software Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: How do Sharepoint and Yammer match up to IBM’s connection solution?
Answer: Hello, Looking at my referrers, I noticed that this question pointed out to my comparison between SharePoint & Connections (see previous discussions for the link). I didn't compare Connections and SharePoint/Yammer yet but just Connections & SharePoint Social. Now that I have a little bit more experience with Connections & IBM Products in general, I'd consider choosing either of those products the following way: - Do you plan for onpremises or a Cloud-based solution? - Do you plan for 100% out of the box or should you be able to customize the product? - Do you plan to use *only* the Social piece of Connections or do you plan to also store your documents in it? If yes, what kind of documents, Office (integration isn't as in SharePoint).? - Are you already working with SameTime or with Lync? Clearly, I'd choose Connections if : - I'm already using Sametime and/or other IBM products since you'd have an SSO for free using the LTPA tokens - I don't plan to customize the product heavily. - I don't plan to have a real document management system in it (Files+CCM) or only with PDF and non Office Documents If I'd need more than what's listed above, I'd go for SharePoint which doesn't only offer Social Capabilities but also other workfloads such as an extensive Search Engine, LOB integration, WCM, Collaboration, Social and three development/deployment models (Full Trust Solutions, Sandboxed, Apps). My experience now with Connections is that it's a nice product but it's harder to customize than SharePoint. It doesn't offer many APIs and it's rather hard to find valuable technical documentation on the product. It's also way harder to find non-IBM people working on the product. With SharePoint, you can really have an industrialization & full ALM of your devleopments and it's quite easy to find .NET/SharePoint developers all around without the need to involve Microsoft. In conclusion, for pure Social related stuff, Connections is better than SharePoint and maybe even better than Yammer but don't try to do anything else with the product nor to interoperate with other products, especially if these are not IBM ones or headaches will start :)
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.""The most valuable feature is the Activity flow that is used to catch new activities."

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"We can send out notifications and ask questions using Yammer.""It was a stable solution...It was a highly scalable solution considering it was used in a very big company.""The integration with Teams is the biggest value for us. In fact, it has only become more valuable now that it has integration with Teams. Teams allows you to stream, so that's good.""The posting features are valuable.""Yammer brings in the most relevant posts to the users.""The most valuable feature of Yammer is its integration with all the services of Office 365.""Groups is the most valuable feature in Yammer.""The initial setup was simple and straightforward."

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Cons
"The support is an area where the product can improve...If you are having an issue on a Monday, the support personnel will contact you next Monday.""The inclusion of a file plugin for Windows Explorer would make it easier to use."

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"Sometimes, we lose access to the solution for unknown reasons.""Yammer should include more integrations.""Yammer's UX and UI are areas with certain shortcomings where improvements are required""It looks slightly less clean on Chrome compared to Microsoft Edge, but it's a minor difference. There is room for improvement in user experience, like positions of elements.""The product seems to just add to the complexity of using existing tools.""If you are using other applications that are tough to integrate into the environment, that can cause limitations.""Users need to be in the Acting Directory to exploit the features.""I would like to see a fancier user interface. That is one of the weak points of Yammer."

More Yammer Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
Information Not Available
  • "I don't know about the pricing. Now that Microsoft has bought Yammer, it should be a part of our subscriptions for Office 365."
  • "The pricing is not bad."
  • "Its cost is included in the license bundle for Microsoft."
  • "Yammer is a pretty cheap solution, and it's included in multiple subscriptions."
  • "Compared to other products like Amazon, Yammer's pricing is fine."
  • "We get it as part of our Office 365 subscriptions, so I don't think we pay any additional cost for Yammer. It's included in the Office 365 subscriptions."
  • "I think that there is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs of the solution."
  • More Yammer Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    There are several discussions on SharePoint’s social strategy going on at the moment. I had some great discussions with my MVP mate Adis during Summit last week. Since #SPC12 almost every SharePoint addicted developer, it-pro, power user has reviewed Yammer. If you don’t know what Yammer is, here a short introduction. Yammer is an enterprise social network, which allows you and your coworkers to communicate in a modern way as on Facebook. The huge difference between Facebook and Yammer is, Yammer is private. That means only people from your organization or the people you’ve invited to join your network can see and take part of the conversation which is going on in your Yammer network. With the common understanding of Yammer, you should be able to follow up the ongoing discussions. Adis wrote a great post, summarizing his thoughts on SharePoint and Yammer integration and the upcoming social future. I totally agree with Adis, there are a lot of things missing at the moment. But here my thoughts on Yammer vs. SPSocial Leak of integration In my eyes there is still too much missing, of course you can integrate yammer into your SharePoint, but key features are missing such as SSO, seamless look ‘n feel integration. Prebuild views on Yammer depending on the current SharePoint context or the mobile story. Microsoft shipped mobile Apps for SharePoint 2013 OnDemand and OnPrem. AFAIK are these apps currently available in preview, but each of them is based on SPSocial. SharePoint… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Anonymous User
    Rusty Isaac - PeerSpot reviewerRusty Isaac (PeerSpot)
    Vendor

    There are lots of reviews of Yammer at http://www.itcentralstation.com/products/yammer

    it_user120486 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user120486 (Works)
    Vendor

    This is good stuff, really helpful. Wish there was more on Yammer.

    Regards,
    Kaymaureen Shim

    it_user120486 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user120486 (Works)
    Vendor

    Great! I will check out Cisco-webex

    Regards,
    Kaymaureen Shim

    it_user104763 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user104763 (Works)
    Vendor

    This blog is extensive from a SharePoint MVP who had worked with both products. Hope this helps

    http://www.silver-it.com/node/157

    it_user105159 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user105159 (Vice President at a tech services company)
    Consultant

    Yeah - I'd agree with reviewer131589 that if the organization currently has IT/organizational capability around MSFT or IBM, that would certainly figure into the picture. And that whether one or the other would be more appropriate would be subject to business and technical requirements. Otherwise, while I'm more familiar with the SharePoint/Yammer side of things, I do know Connections should also be able to do the job. All these major vendor solutions have robust capabilities - it's just a question of how much do you want/need to invest to get what you want up and running, and whether you want to re-use/build on an existing platform (thus leveraging an existing asset) or go for more of a business point solution. In the latter case, this opens you up to options in the cloud that might be more specific to what you're looking for and give you faster time to market. For a comparison of a few social platforms, check out: http://www.r2integrated.com/digital-lab/thought-leadership/social-community-platform-comparison. While a practitioner/expert on any one of these might differ with some of the assessments, it at least does give you a nice side-by-side comparison of features. Again, in reality, given that they all can generally do almost anything, you have to take a look at each one and see if its focus is close to what you're trying to provide for your end users/customers. If you have to twist the thing on its head too much, you end up just doing more work. Hope this helps.

    it_user104490 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user104490 (Works at a tech company with 51-200 employees)
    Vendor

    The objective of any such initiative by governments is to have a wide
    applicability of the solution with rich features but more importantly a
    solution that provides the flexibility of scale. If those are the stated
    objectives then IBM Connections surely scores over Sharepoint+Yammer any
    day. The issue with Sharepoint is the ability to have a public facing
    infrastructure which has been designed keeping scale in mind. From a
    feature richness angle also IBM Connections scores over Sharepoint since
    Connections was designed to be a Social Collaboration tool and now has
    tightly integrated solutions including the ability to have analytics and
    content tools embedded in the solution.

    it_user131589 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user131589 (Works)
    Vendor

    IBM Connections Integrates well with SharePoint.
    Post the integration configuration, most of the time, we should be able to get our SharePoint Libraries and Mysite integrated with connections. By having Microsoft Windows Authentication, we would be able to see the teamsitres, contents etf through SharePoint APIs on Conections page.Availability of Uploading docs are also single click away.Its visa versa from SharePoint as well.
    Questions regarding MS Yammer or IBM Connections would be subject to business decision however it would also be dependent on wheather we have Connections in the system or Yammer. if its a fresh new set up planning then in long run SharePoint with Yammer negates the need to have IBM connection and have more cost effective solutions.

    Best regards,
    Kumar

    it_user128490 - PeerSpot reviewerit_user128490 (IT Leader at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees)
    Consultant

    I have experience using Yammer, Sharepoint, IBM -Sametime, Cisco-webex as a social platform. I liked Cisco - webex for various reason - Easy to use, online conferencing, blog, message broadcast, desktop share, meeting scheduler and seamless integration with MS office calendar. I found webex connect to be feature rich and meets most of our Orgs social needs.

    Many Thanks
    Pratyush

    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
    Top Answer:The support is an area where the product can improve. My company faces some support-related issues because whenever we create or generate a ticket, it takes two days for the product's support team to… more »
    Top Answer:I use HCL Connections for marketing purposes. The IBM product in our company already provides us with direct links to the marketing and HR sides.
    Top Answer:The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.
    Top Answer:Yammer's UX and UI are areas with certain shortcomings where improvements are required. Yammer's UX and UI should be made more user-friendly and organized. For improvements in the area of stability… more »
    Top Answer:The company primarily uses it as a communications hub for our business. When you open a browser window, our homepage is a Yammer page with news items and communication from management. Some teams also… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    308
    Comparisons
    173
    Reviews
    1
    Average Words per Review
    649
    Rating
    9.0
    Views
    1,882
    Comparisons
    1,022
    Reviews
    12
    Average Words per Review
    370
    Rating
    7.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    IBM Connections, Lotus Connections
    Learn More
    Overview

    IBM Connections™ is a leading unified collaboration and social networking solution that helps you filter out the noise to get work done. Connections empowers your teams and organization to engage with the right experts, accelerate innovation, and deliver results. All the collaboration tools you need to be productive are united under a single sign-on so you can reduce time spent switching between disparate tools and focus on the people and work that matters most. Experience a security-rich and business-compliant environment sanctioned by IT. Confidently share knowledge within your teams and your organization, and extend collaboration beyond traditional boundaries. Connections can enable you to improve decision-making, increase productivity, and accelerate time-to-market. Shift from being merely productive, to truly effective with Connections today.

    IBM Connections can help you: Engage experts. People-centric platform enables you to easily locate the expertise you need, right now. Accelerate innovation. Illuminate and promote new ideas within a thriving social network of teams and communities. Empower teams. Get work done together and take action; anywhere—from any device. Deliver results. Leverage cognitive insights to prioritize results and arrive at better outcomes. Extend collaboration. Safely collaborate with customers and partners, bringing them into the conversation.

    Yammer is an enterprise social network that allows employees,managers, executives, teams and different office branches to engage,collaborate and innovate over one interactive virtual network.

    Yammer creates a social workplace that drives innovationthrough the sharing of ideas and business intelligence, boosts productivity inteams and projects, and encourages communication and connectivity betweenemployees, no matter where they are located.

    Sample Customers
    Yamato Financial Co. Ltd., University of Zurich, Gwinnett County Public Schools, Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., Telus, Rabobank, Christian Brothers Services, Grupo Financiero Banorte, The Loft Group, Dow Water & Process Solutions, JGC Corporation, College of Medicine, Swansea University, solvito GmbH, Loft Group, Hamm-Reno Group GmbH, Geno SA
    Verizon, Rakuten,Nationwide, DHL, Westfield, Telefonica, 7-Eleven, Red Robin, Intuit, eBay,Darden, Suncorp, Tyco, Xerox, and ModCloth.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Transportation Company12%
    Government8%
    Insurance Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization31%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Insurance Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Insurance Company13%
    Non Tech Company13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm12%
    Computer Software Company10%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise45%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise42%
    Large Enterprise40%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business39%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise43%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise63%
    Buyer's Guide
    Enterprise Social Software
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Atlassian, Slack and others in Enterprise Social Software. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    HCL Connections is ranked 10th in Enterprise Social Software with 55 reviews while Yammer is ranked 4th in Enterprise Social Software with 60 reviews. HCL Connections is rated 8.2, while Yammer is rated 7.4. The top reviewer of HCL Connections writes "Provides potent document sharing with good integration with the Microsoft desktop and smartphones". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Yammer writes "Ease of use and a familiar user interface". HCL Connections is most compared with Skype for Business, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Atlassian Confluence, whereas Yammer is most compared with Workplace by Facebook, SAP Jam, Chatter and Jive.

    See our list of best Enterprise Social Software vendors.

    We monitor all Enterprise Social Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.