Let’s connect – HCL roadmap for connections

Let’s connect – HCL roadmap for connections

SocialConnections (next year the conference will be called LetsConnect) is the most important international user group conference around HCL Connections.

Keynote

This year Marco Spühler, Roman Benz and me had the opportunity to give a keynote during Socialconnections held in Munich. We discussed the use of Connections in the different areas of the University of Zurich and showed the diversity of our University with different scenarios for Connections usage. A diversity that also amazed our audience and brought us into lively exchange during the whole conference.

From the very beginning, the conference has focused on our customer stories and has allowed them to have their say. Another remarkable keynote was given by Stefanie Preisinger from Continental (my preferred tyre manufacturer for my racing bike). Continental, like other large companies in Germany relies on Connections as an Enterprise Social Network. Stefanie was not the only one who showed how to not only rely on one solution, but how to integrate solutions today. Continental is currently introducing Office 365, but continues to rely on Connections and integrates Office 365. In other words, there is no either-or way, but a targeted and conscious both-and.

Integration

This is exactly the way HCL will go with Connections in the future. It was the first major conference since HCL acquired IBM’s entire Collaboration portfolio and HCL first talked on a larger public scale about the evolution of Connections. HCL has made it clear how they position themselves: “PEOPLE POWER YOUR BUSINESS – HCL CONNECTIONS POWERS YOUR PEOPLE!”

Connections 6.5

As in the Domino/Notes segment, HCL is aware of the need to invest quickly in further development. Even though the stagnation in the Connections area lasted less long than in the Domino/Notes area, promises have remained open and a backlog can also be seen in the Connections area. It is therefore all the more pleasing how quickly HCL is making progress in this area, too, and is disclosing a roadmap that has been very positively received. HCL has proven that promises are delivered and has announced a new version 6.5 for Connections for this year. Considerable what will be offered in such a short time. In addition to a modernized editor, a new function to invite external users and a new search engine (elastic search), the partial integration of Kudos boards is especially pleasing. Activities gets “boards” with Activities Plus, without having to license and buy an additional solution as before. Activities will thus be much more attractive to use. With “Boards”, which can be moved easily and allow intuitive, simple and effective task management. Kudos boards can also be used in Office 365 teams. It was impressively shown how an Activity Plus can be opened in Connections and is immediately available in O365 teams.

Connections 7

HCL is really breaking new ground in integrative ways. At the same time, HCL also states that the customer should and may decide where his data lies. In a cloud of an HCL partner, in a private cloud or traditionally on premises. And HCL also leaves no doubt about what the Cloud Act means for the customer when using a cloud solution from an American provider: Access by US authorities can take place without the owner of the data being informed.

But back to integration. In the future it will be possible to integrate files and folder structures from Sharepoint into own communities. Also here not either-or but both-and. Salesforce or SAP should become just as well integrable as Office 365 and also a cooperation with Google is openly looked for. If with DOCS an improvement is thought of, it is not excluded at present that O365 could also be used as a viewer. Even if these integration become partly possible only with Connections 7, such integrative efforts are nevertheless very promising approaches from the user’s point of view.