Verse beyond PowerPoint
by Volker Weber
Now that Verse went GA (General Availability) I can tell you a bit about what I found out using it.
The basics are working. You can send and receive email. You can attach files to emails, you can attach files to the Files section. Search works really well. I would not call the UX self-explaining, but it's reasonably easy to figure out how you are supposed to perform simple tasks.
Having said that, the list of things that do not work is rather long.
- When you open the account there is no option to import existing email or calendars. Your address book is empty, and you can add contacts from a comma separated file created by Outlook. There is no way to import from an existing account in the cloud, and you cannot import a vCard file with all your contacts.
- When you receive an email, you cannot add the sender to the address book. It will not automatically do so when you reply to an email you received, or when you type in a new address.
- When you manually add a contact, you cannot assign a photo to the contact. This is a problem, since the top row of Verse shows bubbles with your most important contacts and you have no way to assign photos to those contacts.
- The concept "personal debt" does not work. You can assign a "reply by tomorrow" to an email. It will show up in your "Waiting For" but not in "Needs Action" for the recipient. You can do this manually by assigning Needs Action to incoming mail, but Verse will not do it for you.
- When you share a file from your Files section, the person you are sharing your file does not get a notification.
- When you share a file in an email to a group of people and one recipient has an outside address, the recipient cannot get the file.
- All profiles are public.
- You cannot set your mail footer.
- You cannot set your Out Of Office profile.
- Network invitations are classified as spam.
- You cannot see the messages IBM classified as spam.
- You cannot choose an email address.
- There doesn't appear to be a way to recover a lost password. Other than sending an email to WebMaster@ibmverse.com.
- Verse has not figured out who my important contacts are, even after reading hundreds of mails.
- When people add you to your network, you will not get a notification that you have to accept the request. You only find out if you view your own profile.
In summary: you have no chance to experience the power of Verse by signing up for an account. If somebody migrates your company account into a Verse environment with full profiles in Connections, many of my issues go away. But a test drive? Not by a long shot.
The sign-up process is currently broken. IBM is soliciting sign-ups, but does not deliver. This should not bother you too much, since IBM needs time to fix the issues above.
Comments
not able to load calendar and contacts? so IBM is basically offering you a new start in life? lovely =)
The target audience for IBM Verse is obviously people who don't have email yet.
In my opinion the current target audience for IBM Verse are companies who have an existing on prem Notes/Domino email environment and are thinking about moving to the cloud. A private user with one or more mailboxes on GMX, web.de, T-Online, etc. doesn't really benefit from moving to ibmverse.com.
Volker, you're correct about some of the issues you've raised in your post, but we're just getting started with IBM Verse. Verse is a great path, and we expect the momentum will continue. Can I ask for your assistance? Your feedback is invaluable. Would you mind providing your input within the product itself? Click on the "?" drop-down in the upper right-hand corner, then "Submit Feedback." This way you can make sure your great feedback routes directly back to Product Management and Development. Thanks.