From its inception, the HCL Connections collaboration suite was built around the central premise of openness and discoverability.  This was specifically done to ensure that content and expertise needed to collaborate effectively with other team members is easily discoverable. Information silos, on the other hand, disrupt and slow down collaboration. Eighty percent of companies in a recent survey reported a moderate to high degree of information silos within the organizations. Silos impede employee efficiency and can negatively impact both the top line and the bottom line of a company’s financials.  Information silos separate employees and information  What causes information silos?  Overlapping and disparate applications that don’t talk to each other or are only used in specific parts of an organization. Disconnected and dispersed content leads to document duplication, version control difficulty, and productivity loss as employees needlessly search for crucial information across multiple content repositories. These unintentional boundaries can have a profound impact on employee productivity, engagement and the ability to solve problems. Breaking down information silos  Our most recent software release bridges the silo gap by bringing the benefits of Connections to the Microsoft Ecosystem, adding information-sharing capabilities to both Connections and Microsoft. Inside Connections, you can now start a conversation via Microsoft Teams Chat with any of your Connections contacts from their business card, profile page, or the Important to Me bar.  You can also immediately share and start a conversation around any page in Connections by clicking the Teams icon that you’ll find on that page. You can bring your SharePoint libraries into your Connections Communities, and users can round-trip edit their files in Office with changes automatically saved right back into Connections files – no need to upload an updated file each time. Inside the Microsoft applications, you have one-click access to your Connections community applications — files, wikis, forums, activity feed, etc. — right inside your Teams chats and channels.  You can also insert files or any recent content from Connections into your conversations simply by clicking on the Connections icon in the chat bar. And lastly, we’ve introduced a brand-new Outlook add-in that lets you seamlessly shift content back and forth between Outlook and Connections,...

We know you’re anxious to get your hands on the new Connections software release due out later this year. We are excited to share that our hosted Connections v7 preview site is now live. Sign up now and you’ll be able to try out pre-release software for our new tailored experience Community features, integration with Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, and more. You will also have a chance to provide feedback to the development team and get your questions answered. Our new capabilities featured in the Connections v7 preview include: Delivering a tailored Community experience Reusable templates to get teams up and running faster. Improved Community layout options for a more customized experience. Simplified Community creation to save time getting started. Enhanced Microsoft ecosystem support Link Microsoft Teams and your Communities for a more seamless experience. Access SharePoint files/folders without leaving your Connections application. Easily print Connections content or save as a PDF file Don’t miss your opportunity to test drive our new functionality in this software release preview. And remember to provide your feedback to us.  Our customers are an integral part of our product evolution, and your feedback is invaluable to our continued commitment of delivering the best collaborative solution in the market. Register Now for the Connections v7 preview:  https://hclsw.co/cxn-7-pre

There are many reasons you should be planning an upgrade to the latest version of HCL Connections, since it drives greater adoption and creates a more engaged workforce within your organization. One of the key new features in Connections 6.5 is the integration at no charge of Kudos Activities Plus, a rapid, agile project management capability that gives your teams a way to reach their goals faster.   The redesigned Activities features in Connections 6.5 provide an intuitive, user-friendly interface and a lightweight project management tool that helps people align resources, tools, and knowledge to get work done. Assigning tasks and due dates are core to making sure projects get done on time and within budget. Kudos Activities Plus lets Connections customers manage tasks and projects on both mobile and desktop devices.  Any HCL Connections user can now easily and quickly organize tasks, teamwork, projects, and schedules directly from within their Connections environment. This new capability is free when you install the Connections 6.5 Component Pack.    Activities Plus is also fully integrated with Microsoft 365 (Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, Outlook) for users who want to combine the benefits of both Connections and Microsoft 365 — Kudos Activities Plus is accessible from within both environments. This advanced integration enables adding Activities to Microsoft Teams, sharing them via email, and adding files to OneDrive and directly to SharePoint as a Site Page as part of your SharePoint workspace.    Find out more here, and schedule a demo here.  

Making sure your teams are inspired and engaged in their work can be challenging — and with more teams working remotely around the world, this matters more than ever. A recent Gallup study1 indicated that only a third of employees are truly engaged in their work. Gallup went on to say that organizations with higher engagement levels are not only more productive, they achieve four times higher earnings per share growth. One of the reasons employees become disengaged is because they’re unable to find what they need to do their jobs — or because of a lack of information in general. It’s been estimated that employees can spend up to eight hours a week searching for information they require for their role (this means that 20% of the time, or one full day a week, work isn’t actually getting done!). HCL Connections has communication hubs to deliver relevant information more quickly and efficiently. Communities help connect people to the experts they need to get more work done. Not knowing where a file is, who sent it or how, and which version is the latest one also means that teams can waste crucial hours and weeks trying to find what it is they need just to do their job. The shared document repository that Connections is built on maintains one instance of the file — a single version of the truth. This means that the exact same version of the file is available in both your personal folder and in all the communities it has been shared to. Anyone accessing the file, no matter which community they are in, will always see the latest version. Fundamental to an organization’s success is creating a positive and productive work environment and culture. Employees who interact frequently with their teammates are more likely to share insights, willingly contribute to projects and take...

One of the most common pain points at every single organization is not being able to find a file or project when you need to. Did someone email it to you or was it sent to you in an HCL Sametime message? Or maybe someone uploaded it to Microsoft Teams? Was it saved to a shared file-server but you just can’t remember which directory? Then, when you find what you were looking for, it can get more confusing. Is this the latest version… and who do I even ask to find out? Should I email that person, message that person? Look through all the versions and try and figure it out myself? All of this can be not just frustrating, but also a colossal waste of time. And, making matters worse, what if you’re on deadline, or someone is out of the office? What if it’s urgent?   HCL Connections helps solve this omnipresent problem in multiple ways. The shared document repository that Connections is built on maintains one instance of the file. This means that the exact same version of the file is available in both your personal folder and in all the communities it has been shared to. Anyone accessing the file, no matter which community they are in, will always see the latest version. In addition, multiple team members can make contributions and edits simultaneously using HCL Connections Docs’ collaborative editing capability, transforming and speeding up the way we work while maintaining the “single version of the truth.”  Because the way we work is becoming increasingly decentralized — and especially now, with the reality of a pandemic changing the way we work on a global scale — being productive, regardless of work location, is a necessity. When you need to access a document, HCL Connections is where you find the “single version of truth” repository. One document, accessible from anywhere. Never worry whether or not you have the latest version ever again.