News

Latest news from the Let’sConnect user group

21/062021

Join our webinar and learn how to kickstart with HCL Connections Engagement Center

Summer holidays are getting closer for many of us, and for some winter is coming. Regardless times are changing and we look forward to a hopefully more open world where we can finally gather the community live!

In the meantime we welcome you to our bi-monthly webinar!

Join us on June 29, 2021 at 3 pm CEST to hear news from HCL and the Let’sConnect team.

Agenda snippets below:

HCL Connections news

At our last online event we collected the latest and greatest news all about HCL Connections and presented it to our attendees. We got good feedback on this, so we will of course repeat this news section!

Kickstart with the HCL Connections Engagement Centre

Join this session to learn how to kickstart HCL Connections Engagement Center. Roger will take you through the steps of creating a base intranet page brining content in from HCL Connections and other sources. In 45 minutes you can have a simple intranet. Roger will also show you how to create a separate intranet page for visitors so you don’t expose internal data to them.

Roger Zirn: As a Senior Software Engineer at Belsoft Collaboration AG, Roger gathered his HCL Connections experiences during installations, troubleshooting, administering and customizing tasks for several on-prem as well as for ThreeThirds cloud customers. He started to work in the collaboration area as an HCL Notes and Domino developer 30 years ago (actually, at this time it was called Lotus Notes developer). You can still find him coding @Formulas and LotusScript… sometimes.

Please register for the event in order to receive the webinar link. The event is free!

We are looking forward to see you soon.

Maria, Wannes, Matteo, Martin and Jan

19/052021

Thank you for joining Let’sConnect Connect Virtual May 2021

News 2021, connections, hcl, letsconnect, may, virtual by Maria Nordin

Hello!

We are so happy to have held yet another virtual conference in this year of 2021. As much as we wish we could see you all in person we are over the moon of the response we have from the Connections Community. We were a full house again!

This time we had two very interesting topics alongside our popular “Connections News” collected and given by the Let’sConnect team:

HCL Connections News by Wannes Rams from the Let’sConnect team

Upcoming Webinar on Driving Digital Transformation

HCL Connections & Microsoft 365 webinar recording

DS Academy – Upgrading from Connections 6.5 to 7

HCL Connections Roadmap by Adam Gartenberg, Director, Product Management, HCL

With the most recent release of HCL Connections out the door, we are working hard on the next release. In this session we will share a preview of how the next Connections release creates a new experience that will let users enjoy fluid collaboration within Connections and beyond.
Link to Adam’s presentation here
Link to Adam’s session here (Youtube)

Fine-tune HCL Connections to your needs by Jan Valdman, Whitesoft

Once you finish installation of HCL Connections, there are dozens of features you can enable or disable in so called post-installation steps. In this session we will walk through most of the features and advice how to make Connections users engaged and happy.
Link to Jan’s presentation here
Link to Jan’s session here (Youtube)

After the sessions we had a really interesting Q&A session with lots of good questions and answers on the coming versions of Connections and HCL’s plan ahead.

Now we immediately start planning our next conference which will take place on June 29, 2021!

If you are interested to participate in any way (for example speaking in a session), please email us at team@letsconnect.world. Any topic is interesting, and particularly of course upgrading experiences.

Until we meet again,

So long!

The Let’sConnect Team

05/052021

Join our May webinar to get most of your Connections Deployment and see the Connections Roadmap

News by Maria Nordin

Hi,

our next webinar is about to happen NEXT week on May 11 3pm CET! Let us connect together again to learn how to get most of your Connections deployment. We have prepared two sessions for you:

HCL Connections news

Fine-tune HCL Connections to your needs

Once you finish installation of HCL Connections, there are dozens of features you can enable or disable in so called post-installation steps. Unfortunately many of the useful features are not enabled by default and therefore missed by many admins to the detriment of users. In this session we will walk through most of the features and advice how to make Connections users engaged and happy.

Jan Valdman works as a business development manager and consultant in Whitesoft, a Czech-Belgian IT company. Jan is a Connections-addict IT evangelist who has log time experience with IBM/HCL technology. He is also an assistant professor on Enterprise IT management and Knowledge management at University of West Bohemia. Jan has been recognized as IBM champion for collaboration solutions 2014-2019 and HCL Ambassador since 2019.

HCL Connections Roadmap presented by HCL

Adam Gartenberg is Director of Product Management at HCL

Please register for the event in order to receive the webinar link. The event is free!

We are looking forward to see you soon.

Maria, Wannes, Matteo, Martin and Jan

23/032021

Thank you for joining Let’sConnects Virtual March 2021

News adam, banatwala, bill, conference, connections, gartenberg, jack, miki, odonnell, rams, virtual, wannes, wannes rams, wimer by Maria Nordin

March 2021! Think, a year ago we could not believe we would be living our work lives online and that several office desks are now collecting dust instead of coffee cups. It is already a cliché saying all this, but as strange the world is, it is worth repeating.

Luckily, we have the tools to get the job done. HCL Connections is the meeting point and the central hub where colleagues meet, work, document, collects, learn. A tool which breaks down silos, creates visibility and lets people do their job.

That’s why we in the Let’sConnect team keep on doing our job. Gather people that wants to share knowledge, network and help others. At either physical conferences or as now, virtual.

Last week we had our second virtual conference: Let’sConnect Connects!

Registrations were flowing in and the team was really happy by the numbers!

The reason was of course the topics for the conference:

HCL Connections News by Wannes Rams from the Let’sConnect team
(why upgrade to Connections 7, Install Automations, Connections Sizing Guide)

HCL Connections Client Advocacy by John Immerman, HCL
(join the Client Advocacy and take part in the vibrant Connections Communtity.)
Link to John’s presentation here

Take your Communities to the next level by Fabio Gervasoni, Design Lead HCL
(create engaging and attractive Communities by customizing the homepage layout
of your community, and new capabilities made possible by new Connections templates.)
Link to Fabio’s presentation here
Link to Fabio’s session here (Youtube)

After the sessions we had a really interesting Q&A session where we had a fantastic group of people from HCL helping out answering questions and talking to people from the community:

Adam Gartenberg, Director, Product Management HCL
Miki Banatwala, Senior Software Engineer at HCL
Bill Wimer, Director Of Engineering HCL

And last but not least we got introduced to Jack O’Donnell, the new Director of Development for HCL Connections. We are really excited that he joined us, and we look forward to hearing from him again!

Now we immediately start planning our next conference which will take place on May 11, 2021!

Until we meet again,

So long!

The Let’sConnect Team

19/032021

HCL Webinar : learn how speed up your work with the new Connections 7.0 integrations

News HCL Connections 7.0, integrations, webinar by Maria Nordin

Dear community , HCL has scheduled a new exiting webinar for Wed, Apr 7, 2021 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM CEST about the new Connections 7.0 integrations between Connections 7.0 and Microsoft 365 software like Teams , SharePoint , Outlook and Office.

If you are interested to learn all about this new integration features to break the silos and speed up your work and raise up your productivity , reserve your seat using the following registration page : https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7366333594501517838

04/032021

Join our March webinar and take your communities to the next level

News by Jan Valdman

Hi,

today we are happy to bring you some details regarding our first online event in this year – which will take place on March 16 3pm CET! Let us connect together to hear some news regarding WHAT from HCL. We are thrilled to learn more about the next release of Connections later in this year and how it will meet your expectations.

Our main speaker will be Fabio Gervasoni from HCL design team, who will show us how to create attracting and engaging communities.

Take your Communities to the next level

Connections 7 offers new ways of tweaking and customizing the homepage layout of your community and new capabilities made possible by new Connections templates. In this session, Fabio Gervasoni, head of the HCL Connections Design team, will share design tips and best practices on developing Communities that are suited to your needs, attractive and engaging for your specific audiences.

Fabio Gervasoni joined the HCL Digital Solutions team in January 2020. An experienced graphic designer, Fabio covered different roles ranging from traditional print design and art direction to UX and UI for web and mobile, both agency and in-house. In his current role at HCL he is leading the Connections and Sametime design teams, refining the user experience and look and feel of these key tools in the HCL’s product portfolio.

The second speaker will be John Immerman who will tell us all about the Connections Advocacy Program

Last but not least, the event is open for all members of the community so if you have something to tell, give us a shout – we can arrange a short timeslot for you. We would also like to discuss our plans for the September conference in Madrid – do you still remember that we have got an amazing venue, huh? We need your feedback regarding your expectations and possibility of international travel.

Please register for the event HERE in order to receive the webinar link. The event is free!

We are looking forward to see you soon.

Maria, Wannes, Matteo, Martin and Jan

21/012021

HCL Connections User Feedback Survey

News connections, feedback, survey by Matteo Bisi

HCL has released the new HCL Connections 7 at the end of December 2020, now the developers are collecting info to improve the future releases.

You could try the user feedback survey here https://hclsw.co/connections-survey

it’s a 5-10 minutes survey to help HCL to build a better Connections, please keep your time and send your response !

13/012021

Introducing a global program for super users of HCL Connections

News by Maria Nordin

There are lots of initiatives to connect people who work with HCL Connections. But none targeted directly to super users of HCL Connections within organisations. Heitkamp & Thumann is using HCL Connections as their collaboration platform, and they have for a while been running a ‘guide’ (super user) program with good results.

From their experience with running this initiative we would like to explore what options there are to bring together their guides with guides, champions, super users from other programs. Maybe to just have someone sit in on one of their (virtual) meetings to have some exchange of thoughts or to talk about the challenges they run into when trying to get their colleagues to expand their usage of the platform and maybe just to exchange some tips & tricks. All ideas are open and welcome.

While most other initiatives might connect those at the top, the admins, organizers, community managers, architects, this initiative focuses directly on the people who uses HCL Connections most. There are so many more who use the product and never go to conferences, virtual events etc. Not because they can’t, but because they think it’s not for them or too technical or just not in their job role. But many of them, and especially those that act as champions, super users, ambassadors or guides would really benefit from hearing how others are doing things.

So if you are a guide, internal HCL Connections champion, super user, ambassador for HCL Connections within your company (named as such or just because you do it) or run an adoption program and have them, or would simply like to start one; join us for the session where we try to come up with ways to set this up. The session is in English and open to all.

Date: 21st of January at 4pm CET

Meeting id is: https://ht-group.zoom.us/j/96572564480

13/012021

Let’sConnect in 2021, big plans

News by Wannes Rams

Hi all and a happy New Year from the Let’sConnect team,

We sincerely wish you all the best for 2021 and we hope that this can be the year the world goes back to normal ( if it ever was).

We have some exciting announcements to make so let’s get started:

First of all, we have secured a venue for our fall event and are keeping that booking for now in the hope that by the end of September we will be able to meet in person. The dates that are booked are
27-28 September 2021!
MadridObviously, these plans are subject to change and will largely depend on the pandemic situation and your willingness to travel
Second of all, 2020 has learned us that virtual events are the thing and we did one successfully. So we want more!
We will be holding a bi-monthly virtual meeting where we will invite speakers to talk to us about Connections and were we will have the opportunity to discuss amongst the participants.The schedule we are looking at would start in March (day to be decided)

The goal is to have a mix of content. Adoption, Use cases, technical sessions, HCL sessions, ….. We are looking for content and speakers. So please contact us if you have an interesting topic to discuss. Reach out to your favorite Let’sConnect team member, mail us ( team@letsconnect.world), tweet @_lets_connect, ….

Let’s make it a great year together!!!!

05/102020

Replay videos of Let’sConnect Virtual 2020

News by Maria Nordin

Let’sConnect Virtual 2020 is over! The event was a real success and we are very happy for all the good feedback we have received from the attendees and speakers. It feels great that the community showed up, took part, asked questions and participated in polls from the speakers.

A real good feeling to see so many familiar names in the attendee list, and also so many new ones!

We are also pleased with the content that our speakers provided, we know it can be tough. Especially now in these times!

We have been working fast to get all presentations and replay videos published. Please also see our other blog posts where we share poll results, and the Q&A from the sessions.

Regarding the videos, please see the link to our Youtube channel below! And we are more than happy if you would share them amongst your colleagues and friends.

Keep the community vibrant, welcoming and alive! We look forward until we all can meet again.

The Let’sConnect Team

Let’sConnect Youtube Channel