Category: ibm

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Official list of IBM 2019 Champions

Although the IBM Champions were announced just before Christmas the official list has now been published.

Super proud to be included in this illustrious list again. I am in a handful of champs from the ICS brand that have been champions since the program started in 2011  for ICS.

The program selects Champions annually based on individual contributions that go beyond the scope of a person’s job, so that we can recognize and reward those who give so generously of their time, effort, and energy.

 

 

 

This will be the last year that ICS as a brand is part of the IBM Champion group as of course the software is moving over to HCL later this year. Hoping the guys over there do a similar thing as it has strengthened the community. It’s been a blast and I am looking forward to the future.

The full post and list can be seen here on the IBM Community Blog

 

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HCL to acquire key IBM software

I woke up to the news that HCL tech are going to acquire select IBM software products – This is big news

IBM already had a partnership with HCL where they would develop the code for IBM – Notes and Domino were among this group.
HCL have injected a massive amount of enthusiasm with thier aggressive development plans and release cycle for Notes/Domino which has given the Community a shot in the arm that it needed.
But the news was trickling out slowly and a lot of Domino customers are already moving mail off the platform – HCL are not backwards in coming forwards and they have budget to market – ICS was a tiny fish in a very big IBM pond so now it may get the attention it deserves.

This deal is still ongoing and may not be completed until mid 2019 and is subject to change, but these are the solutions on the table

  • Appscan for secure application development
  • BigFix for secure device management
  • Unica (on-premise) for marketing automation
  • Commerce (on-premise) for omni-channel eCommerce
  • Portal (on-premise) for digital experience
  • Notes & Domino for email and low-code rapid application development
  • Connections for workstream collaboration.

Of course there was already a partnership set up for some of these products, when the deal goes through these will be HCL products not IBMs.

I am super excited for this .. all of the tech I have worked with over the last 20 years from an IBM standpoint is in this list – I am especially excited about the future of Commerce. I spend 8 happy years as a WebSphere Commerce admin and consultant and it is still my favourite product to work with (I may need to brush up on some commerce skills now) .. We have already seen the possitive impact of HCL working with Notes and Domino and the new products they are spinning out of it (HCL Places being one of them). I have high hopes for Connections, Commerce and Portal – I am really looking forward to seeing what the furture will hold.

The press release can be found here

and the Register’s take on the deal

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Connections adoption – full list of videos

Here are the full list of videos from the Connections adoption month campaign from IBM.

 

Video List

IBM Connections Tip #1 – Build your network
IBM Connections Tip #2 – Advertise your skills
IBM Connections Tip #3 – Update your status every day
IBM Connections Tip #4 – Bookmark in Connections
IBM Connections Tip #5 – Stop sending files in emails
IBM Connections Tip #6 – Stop doing work in emails!
IBM Connections Tip #7 – Co-create with Wikis!
IBM Connections Tip #8 – Create a self help forum
IBM Connections Tip #9 – Follow wisely!
IBM Connections Tip #10 – Check your activity stream daily
IBM Connections Tip #11 – Only create mission driven communities
IBM Connections Tip #12 – Lead by Example
 

Graphic List

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Connections Adoption Month – midway update

Connections Adoption Month – midway update

So we are half of the way though Connections Adoptions month (july 2018) and if you have been following the IBM_ICSsupport  twitter account, you will have noticed some videos and tips these have also been posted over on the Connections Cloud Collaboration blog.

These videos are between 1 and 2 mins each and are bite size chunks on the 12 Winning social habbits with IBM Connections. I have collated these videos into a list (which I will append with all of the videos once they are published) and any of the other social posts around this subject.

The videos are great ways of introducing users on how IBM Connections can help with their day to day tasks. Personally I spend a lot of time in IBM Connections, the internal BCC one, Customer Connections systems, IBM in the Cloud (NA and CE Connections Cloud), the ICON UK Cloud Connections – I use connections a lot! There are so many times that we have shown how doing some of these simple tasks can help make people more productive – there has been many “AHA!” moments 🙂

Grab the videos, share the images (in a number of langages) and get your users engaging .. 😀 If you think there are languages missing let us know and we can ask IBM to translate the graphics.

Happy collaborating

 

Video List

IBM Connections Tip #1 – Build your network
IBM Connections Tip #2 – Advertise your skills
IBM Connections Tip #3 – Update your status every day
IBM Connections Tip #4 – Bookmark in Connections
IBM Connections Tip #5 – Stop sending files in emails
IBM Connections Tip #6 – Stop doing work in emails!
IBM Connections Tip #7 – Co-create with Wikis!

 

Graphic List

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GDPR and IBM Connections / Docs On-Prem

At IBM Think back in March, the Connections Offering Management team promised us some information to help with GDPR compliency. The Connections Cloud information has been available for a while and the On-Premises docuemtation was on the way.

Today my friend and fellow IBM Champion Roberto alerted me to the technotes that are available.

IBM Connections: http://bit.ly/cnxGDPR

IBM Docs: http://bit.ly/docsGDPR

There is a new section in each of the knowledgebases entitled Managing personal data in accordance with GDPR – see here for Connections and here for Docs (note the docs section mostly points to the Connections KB).

The technotes refer to a number of standard tasks that should be configured as part of the install and configuration process – such as using SSL for HTTP traffic, disabling anonymous access etc.

I am sure that this information will evolve as time goes on, but its a great start.

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Connections Engagment Center coming to Connections Cloud

IBM have announced (see announcement here), that Connections Engagement Center will be coming to Connections Cloud from the 30th of Novemember.

Having used CEC On-Premises for sometime I know this is going to be a massive enhancement for Connections Cloud users. As with the On-Premises version it will be a seperately priced add-on for Cloud S1 and S2 subscriptions.

Want to learn more about CEC for Connections Cloud? Register for a webinar run by Alan Hamilton & Thierry Batut which is running on Fri 1 December 2017 at 13:30 – 14:00 GMT

 

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Version 10 and beyond – I Aint Dead

You are a Connections / WebSphere admin what do you care about Domino? I hear people ask – well actually I care a lot .. I use these products every day – I can’t do my job with out Domino / Verse / Notes and Sametime.

After what can only be described as a lack of love for the Domino/Notes stack IBM have made a HUGE announcement in partnering with the development team at HCL Technologies to bring a new version to the beloved Domino stack.

IBM signs strategic partnership with HCL Technologies to increase commitment and deliver major release in 2018 

No official press release as such but there is a post over on the IBM Social Business Blog here.

The IBM Team that look after the Domino family will be working closely with the team at HCL to bring us version 10 of the Domino family products as early as the second half of 2018. When I say Domino family it really is the entire stack .. so obviously the server (Domino), but we will also be seeing new versions of the Notes client (yes .. you heard me correctly .. a new client version with new features and things will be fixed), Verse and Sametime .. so it really is the WHOLE family.

Needless to say on the IBM Champions call that I attended last week there was a lot of excitement and questions .. this partnership is for the Domino family so the Connections and Docs development stays with IBM – I see this as a good thing. It’s fair to say for the past few years as the Domino family worked it wasn’t shown a lot of love, but there are things that need attention and IBM didn’t have the resource. Now they have – existing Connections and Docs development can continue at its agressive rate and the Domino family of products will get the development attention it deserves.

Some naysayers may say too little too late – but I can tell you that even though some customers have moved their mail away from Domino on premises to MS, Google or IBMs cloud there are hundreds of thousands of customers who rely on their Domino applications and can not run thier businesses without them.

I for one actually like using my Notes client for mail, I also use verse (both cloud and on premesis) and have a bunch of apps that I need to use both for my employer and customers that are Domino based.

To quote Granny Weatherwax from Terry Prattchet’s Discworld series

 

I Aint Dead

I am looking forward with excitment to what the new partnership is going to bring, improvements to the Domino family and news of the roadmap. This is not just about a version 10 .. this is a long term, forward thinking continuous longevity plan.

There is a video that Ed Brill has published with some information and a jam that you can register for to give feedback, ideas etc in to what you need in any future versions of the product. The jam is entitled Domino2025 and you can register for it here.

Don’t be put off by the name .. that doesn’t mean that it will all end in 2025 – infact IBM have said they could have picked any name – they just selected 2025 , maybe they should have used Domino4ever 😉

We are encouraged to get as many people who care about the future of Domino to sign up for the jam .. you can use the hash tag #domino2025 when talking about it .. This jam will help shape the future and plan the roadmap going forward – I do like it when people ask for feedback and then listen. It has taken IBM as a lumbering beast to get this .. but our ICS community has always got this.

The IBM Champions play a great role in getting feedback to IBM and I am still honoured and humbled to be part of this community and part of this group of awesome people.

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Issues with IBM Connections 5 / 5.5 and Chrome 60

There is a known issue with Connections 5 CR4 and all versions of Connections 5.5 when using Chrome version 60.

It affects events not being displayed and errors relating to events in the UI. It has also been reported that comments can be affected also.

After multiple BP’s and Customers reported this IBM Support have come up with a fix very quickly.

The fix you need is IFLO92844 – currently it is only available from IBM support – not sure how long it will be until it is available on fix central.

Open a PMR with IBM and reference these 3 PMR numbers: 76364,082,000 – 76379,082,000 – 38309,756,000 and ask for IFLO92844. You will need to specify the Connections version and CR.

The fix updates the Common app and takes about 10 mins to deploy.

Thank you IBM Connections Support / Dev for resolving this so quickly