HCL Connections Review

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.