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What not to miss at IBM Connect 2017: Connections Pink

IBM Connect 2017 takes place later this month in San Francisco, and the last-minute push to increase attendance is already underway. I’m a big fan of the new venue, and the shift from Florida to California, and so really hope that the event is a huge success.

One of the interesting aspects of the registration push has been the unveiling of some information that previously being kept relatively quiet – if not under NDA, certainly out of the limelight

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IBM posts 4th quarter and full year 2016 results

From the official press release:

Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations were $12.39, down 9 percent compared to the 2015 period. Net income from continuing operations for the twelve months ended December 31, 2016 was $11.9 billion compared with $13.4 billion in the year-ago period, a decrease of 11 percent.

Or, as the register put it, Big Blue’s blues diffuse: IBM’s sales drain now more like a sad trickle:

IBM is touting growth in its cloud and cognitive business units as the enterprise giant wraps up a year of double-digit revenue declines.

Big Blue said that for its fourth quarter of 2016, ended December 31, revenues were nearly flat over the same period last year and net income was up slightly.

There’s no doubt that IBM is still struggling to grow the newer Cognitive and Cloud businesses (up 1.4% and 33% respectively year-on-year in Q4) fast enough to replace the still declining hardware systems and Global Business Services (down 12.1% and 4.1% respectively). Given that there have now been 19 straight quarters of declining revenue, there’s huge and ever-growing pressure on Ginni Rommety and the rest of the leadership team to post a growth quarter early in 2017.

When UBS analyst Steve Milunovich asked Schroeter to put IBM’s turnaround in baseball terms—what inning is IBM in, he asked—Schroeter responded that he didn’t know. Schroeter reiterated the importance of IBM’s strategic imperatives and explained that the company would continue to invest in them.

“I don’t think the transformation of IBM ever ends, quite frankly,” Schroeter said.

On a personal note, I was hoping to compare and contrast IBM’s collaboration solutions revenue with Jive’s upcoming Q4 and 2016 results, but they are now part of the huge Cognitive (Watson) business unit which makes that all but impossible to do.

Beyond Xpages

Beyond Domino development?

Peter Presnell of Red Pill on the future of Domino development ‘Beyond XPages‘:

That made me wonder…. why would IBM suddenly only provide a commitment to fix-packs instead of taking the opportunity to remain committed to a new release, something customers and the community continue to push for? I may be wrong, but I suspect that having already gone three years without a release, should IBM decide to have a 9.0.2 release of Notes/Domino, this could potentially reset the clock for how long IBM would be obligated to support Notes/Domino moving forward. I am sure they will ultimately determine an appropriate length of support once it is clear to customers there are no new releases coming, but they probably want to leave as much wiggle room (legally) as they can. After all, they do employ one or two lawyers!

Back in March I suggested that new ICS GM Inhi Cho Suo was likely to make significant changes to the direction of ICS. The Road Map presented at Engage also was missing any reference to Notes/Domino Next. Perhaps a faster end for Notes, Domino, and XPages is part of that change.

Really insightful thoughts on where XPages and Domino stand as technologies, how far they’ve dropped beyond the latest releases of their supported frameworks, and where enterprise customers should invest their development budget for the future.  No guarantees that Peter’s assumptions are 100% correct, but I do think he’s barking up the right tree…

CGate screenshot

CGATE – an easy-to-use front end for IBM Connections

Interesting release from Swedish ISV, EGBS:

CGATE is a delightful and easy to use front end for IBM Connections. It will be customized to your organization and your employees – no need to adapt your processes to the tool, or for your employees to learn a new vocabulary. The users will get started in no time, leveraging the power of collaboration without the need for extensive training or user adoption programs. All content is stored in IBM Connections, so there is no need for an additional system to manage content. You will discover how CGATE will make collaboration a natural part of the work day – powering your intelligent organization.

Look out for more details next week when I get to experience and review the CGate solution in more detail.

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IBM Champion gear

Thank you IBM

I was hugely honoured to once again be nominated as an IBM Champion back in December.

IBM describes Champions as:

IBM Champion definitionNon-IBMers who evangelize IBM solutions, share their knowledge and help grow the community of professionals who are focused on social business and IBM Collaboration Solutions. IBM Champions spend a considerable amount of their own time, energy and resources on community efforts — organizing and leading user group events, answering questions in forums, contributing wiki articles and applications, publishing podcasts, sharing instructional videos and more!

I was delighted on arriving at my office this morning to find out that today was the day that the branded IBM Champion merchandise has arrived:

IBM Champion gear boxes IBM Champion gear

Given my new role, I had to be a bit more careful this time in terms of the gear that I selected, but I have to say, I’m delighted with the quality and style of the luggage and drinks containers that I received.

Many thanks to Amanda, Oli and everyone else that works on the Champion program. I’m a big fan of brands recognising advocates in their external communities, so I applaud their continued efforts in this area.

Jeff Schick on stage at IBM ConenctED 2015

The official IBM ConnectED 2015 OGS session video

We’ve had the bootleg, now here’s the real McCoy…  

Jeff Schick introduces the IBM ConnectED 2015 opening general session, featuring Scott Souder and Luis Benitez:

From January 25-28, 2015 IBM hosted ConnectED. During the conference, digital experience customers and the business partner community heard the latest in successful business strategies and use cases, solution roadmaps, and participated in valuable sessions covering best practices in Cloud, Mobile and Social.

On Monday, January 26, the conference started with the Opening General Session. Some highlights included opening remarks from IBM General Manager Jeff Schick, an IBM Verse demo from Senior Product Manager Scott Souder, an IBM Connections demo from Senior Product Manager Luis Benitez, and several customer success stories.

Sadly guest speaker Philippe Petit is not included in the recording

Timings are approximately as follows:

01:26 Jeff Schick Intro & Agenda
03:52 2014 A year of Big Bets – The year in review
05:34 Notes 25years, IBM Verse
09:17 Gary Dolsen – IBM Digital Experience: Cloud, Mobile & Persuasive content
14:27 Scott Souder – IBM Verse Demo
34:48 Jeff Schick – What’s coming – IBM Verse, IBM Connections, IBM Bluemix
37:40 Luis Benitez – IBM Connections Next Demo
48:25 Jeff Schick – Summarizing
50:08 Rob & Nicole – Digital Experience tool – Demo
1:02:00 Gary – Summarizing the previous demo
1:03:30 Jeff Schick finishing

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJiHkzl5xQo

So glad this was recorded – I had my doubts for a while there!

Reorganisation

IBM plans huge revamp for partner program

The One Channel Team, which will be led by [Mark] Dupaquier, pulls together 3000 IBM employees across the company’s multiple divisions into one group dedicated to channel needs.

The idea is to simplify the way partners communicate with IBM, making it easier for them to build more profitable lines of business using IBM’s SoftLayer, Watson, security, mobile, systems, services and analytics under a single umbrella.

Having been an IBM partner for almost two decades, I have to think that this is a sensible move. For too long, the partner program has been segmented along product and brand lines, meaning that cross-selling and solution-building has been compromised.

From a Lotus ICS ESS perspective, the announcement was especially notable:

Dupaquier also flagged the released (sic) of IBM Verse, which is due in March. Verse will provide business partners with an improved mail and social experience offing services like messaging, migration and support according to Dupaquier.

For IBM to mention Verse at a major corporate announcement like this is very significant for everyone that is involved.

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BBC: New social network aimed at improving education (IBM Connections)

This is terrific – a BBC Click article discussing how IBM is help local education institutions to evaluate the use of social platforms and analytics to assist students to learn:

IT company IBM and Brockenhurst College in the UK have created a private social network to help give staff a better understanding of their students and tailor lessons to them.

Students can use the system to find out more information about their course, watch videos and chat with others at a sister college in China.

The network can also monitor social media – with consent – to see if students might be underperforming or struggling.

The solution features IBM Connections.

Check the BBC article to view a short overview video (hopefully available worldwide), those in the UK can watch the full programme.

Use and Adoption of IBM Connections – State of the Market 4Q2014

Michael Sampson has just published the results of this year’s IBM Connections usage survey: Michael Sampson

A couple of months ago I kicked off a global survey on the use and adoption of IBM Connections. The survey garnered 58 valid responses, and the results are finally available.

They are really fascinating results and statistics, and it’s going to take a while to digest them!

You can download the report directly from Michael’s site.

 

IBM FileNet (CCM) and soccnx

Last 2 days (13 & 14 November) the most important User Group for the IBM Connections world has been held in Stockholm in Sweden called “Social Connections”. I attended this event and it was a perfectly organized event once again ! On this event I meet several people who have asked me the following question,

Can I easily change the place where are my files get stored by IBM Connections.

What the questioner’s mean with this question is the so called shared data drive within IBM Connections.
The Answer to this question is YES. But the documentation isn’t really completely clear about it. For all the basic applications being delivered with IBM Connections it can be quite easily be solved and that’s by just renaming the directory and then update the WebSphere variables which where pointing to the old directory (there are lots so closely look you get them all !). and you should be finished for the basic IBM Connections applications.

For CCM (Connections Content Manager) its a bit different. CCM is based on IBM FileNet and the storage path of FileNet is actually being configured within FileNet itself. Within IBM FileNet you have a configuration item called “FileNet P8 domains” within the CCM implementation this domain is called “ICDomain”. So we have to go to the ACCE console (Administration Console for Content Platform Engine) you can access this console on the address https://<FQHN>/acce and you have to login with your connections admin user ID. With this admin application you have to click on the “ICDomain” and the Click on the category “Object Stores” and the click the IBM Connections specific called objectstore called “ICObjectStore”. It will open an extra TAB now with all the configuration items for the ObjectStore which is specific for IBM Connections. Within the configuartion of the ObjectStore click on the category “Administrative” and then “”Storage Areas”. Here you have a configuration item called “Root directory path” which points to the directory which is the root for the IBM Connections ObjectStore. Change that property value to the new directory where you want to store the data and stop and start the FileNet environment. Now you should be able to download your old documents again from your libraries within IBM Connections.

Please let me know if this was of any value for you as reader.

 

Stop sending me attachments!! Part 2: the analysis…

So there are many reasons why people have their habits (part 1), not least in the product they use in their daily work life. So in part 2 I will explore the technology angle and look for causes why tools are the way they are and why a seamless integrated platform is harder then it looks.

The idea of seamless and effortless integration of products…

So while this is happening the quasi religious war is being fought. People are searching for purposeful ways to work. Can we make tools that help them to just be more collaborative? Can we make it so that people don’t need to change habits? That culture can adapt to the new ways? Can the tools facilitate the old habits and ways? And at the same time, create a simple cross over to the new and more efficient ways of working?

So let’s start with some simple facts:

  • People do use documents to “solidify” knowledge.
  • Most people live in their email client and send word/excel documents as attachments.
  • Products are NOT integrated well.
  • Adaptors and plugins are just NOT helping enough.
  • People have habits that work for them and habits are hard to change.

Seamless IntegrationIn case of IBM Connections and IBM Notes this is clearly the case. But that’s not unique in the marketplace, by the way! Products have been dealt with by different groups. Notes is a 25 year old product and on the other hand Connections is just 7 years old (ok, the roots of the products can be traced to internal projects, but still). So it’s not weird that the products have their own ways and create their own habits. And believe me e-mail is not dead, not by a long shot. So over time other mail clients appeared in the marketplace, like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and Apple Mail. All in all THE most common way to collaborate is through e-mail and documents. For both within organizations and beyond, it’s simply the least common denominator in most cases. Collaboration based on e-mail has run into many issues over the years and fixed them. The standards lack precision so there are issues between technology implementations. e-Mail is still not secure from end user to end user after 25 years+.  Attachments get bounced because of size. Calendar items are handled differently by everyone. This causes lots of problems in everyday worklife. Who has not dealt with calendar problems, file size issues (it’s just too big) and security worries (viruses and unencrypted mail traffic)?

That said, e-mail is still one of the best use cases of product evolution. Some e-mail clients have added features on top of features for many years now. They have become truly amazing information processing products. Integrated with calendaring, task management and contacts databases.

But lets go back a step. In the last 10 or so years we have seen the arrival of new collaboration solutions that augment e-mail and are “more” social. They create places where people can work on documents online, co-create and share knowledge with others. And yet, these new products do not integrate well (not being by the same father or even the same family). At best “notifications” are sent into the old-and-trusted mailbox of the user. The notifications try to get them to come over to the more collaborative space where they can collaborate on a document. But the products are still siloed, each having their own space. It’s the innovator dilemma happening in real life, since the old products still make money and people are used to them. While the new products have not disrupted the marketplace enough to truly replace e-mail at this point. This causes the situation where their is a multitude of solutions to for users to choose from on how to collaborate.

The e-mail client is changing, hopefully for the better. At least that is what the signs in the marketplace is, Microsoft, Google and IBM are all looking for better ways of doing e-mail. IBM has a project called Mail.Next… Google is working on the next generation Inbox. So everyone in the marketplace is trying to reinvent e-mail. No believe me, the future is upon us. So why worry? All the issues will be fixed in the Cloud Service or Startup Innovation or New App or the Next version of the same product…

Somehow we (=enterprise users) feel left behind. The on-premise customers. Even when there is a product release. We work and slave for another 9-12 months before we can help our end users to make a next step. In reality of our workplace it will take another 2 years before we can reap the benefits of the IBM Mail.Next initiative. And even Google is cautious to just replace their old and trusted Gmail product with the new Inbox, so this innovator of cloud is not moving as fast as you might expect.

So what do we as users want? We want to see evolution in small steps and at a faster pace. While the products are being reinvented, we want to see the the gaps closed now in anticipation of the future convergence of products into “collaboration platforms” that can support purposeful collaboration and do actually integrate seamlessly over product and vendor boundaries.

In the last part I will present ideas that try to innovate and iterate the products and platforms use to get our job done. Ideas that make technology help users to change habits in an effortless way.

Stop sending me attachments!!

Introduction

Picture of Robert van den BreemenBefore I begin, let’s first introduce myself. My name is Robert van den Breemen. I am working as an Enterprise IT Architect for over 15 years in a large Dutch government department. I am passionate about technology and the effect it has on the way people work. As the lead in the Digital Workspace Initiative that tries to enable users to do their work in a modern way I have seen and experienced first hand what technology-enablement means and how resistant people and organizations are to change. That leads me to exploration of the causes and present some ideas for improvements that will hopefully inspire change in technology. Simply because there is bright future ahead of us.

 

An essay on seamless cross integration between mail client and social platform(s)

In this essay (in three parts) I am going to explore the topic by creating a context and give my analysis of the situation. I will paint a picture of the reasons why people are not as efficient as they could be. I will explore what is probably going on in large enterprises. Which finally leads me to some new ideas why seamless cross integration of products is way more important than tons of new features in product and platforms.  

So one of the use cases that seems to be ignored in the collaboration space is the fact that sharing files and documents is done through e-mail as often as before. Even though Connections Files is a great way to share Files and Documents around it’s not done as much as you would expect. So let’s look at the root causes of this problem and why do people not change their behavior.

Some causes that we have seen within our deployment of Notes and Connections:

  1. People just are not used to Connections Files, they find it hard to use.
  2. People are used (habit) to putting their files in the mail and sending it to end-users.
  3. People are getting e-mails from the outside world as attachments.
  4. People still have their files on local disks and network shares, and drag and drop files into their e-mail.
  5. e-Mail is still the most common way to share stuff around to other people, to collaborate.
  6. People still think knowledge is power and they need to hoard and protect their content.
  7. Notes Mail and Connections Files are NOT integrated, it takes changes in one’s habits and workflow changes that are harder then just dragging and dropping.
  8. People live on file sharing, Office products and mail clients, not in browsers and Web pages.
  9. People are hard to convince to use yet another platform.
  10. People have their files and knowledge live in many places, mailboxes, Dropbox, file sharing, cloud drives, teamrooms, and… and…
  11. People send stuff to the outside world, then having stuff in Connections Files does not help.  So drop it into an e- mail, and off you go.
  12. People don’t know anymore where their stuff is opened, so e-mail with attachments might be opened on mobile devices, on android, on ipad or iphones or a Web client. Or even sent to an external user with Google Mail or Outlook mail client, or Apple Mail. It should all just work.

Email badgeWhen you ask adoption consultants what the problem is most of them will tell you that it’s a training and habit problem. So you just need to educate people more, teach them where  to do their tasks more efficiently and how to collaborate more efficiently. Thus the movement of “Zero eMail”. But lots of tasks still happen in e-mail and people just  have plain bad habits. But to be honest, the tools to communicate and collaborate don’t help you… In the last 5 years we have seen more and more options to collaborate to work differently. And yes, we just gave people yet another option to worry about, we added a channel, we called it a “social platform” (Connections). So basically we just added one more channel to their daily work habits. What do you think, did that help? It depends, it all depends on who you ask.

There are the true believers. We call them evangelists. People who truly believe that the way to go is to leave email behind and start working as a connected company. They will tell you that email is inefficient and that you have to change your ways. They show you convincing examples of how to change your ways. They create the 7 habits of highly effective people without e-mail. And they are right, of course. In a way we can be more efficient by working in a more open and connected platform, where people collaborate more openly, where you work together online in real time on a document, instead Danger Religious Warsof exchanging e-mails with individuals, fragmenting the discussions. You can involve your whole team, they can all see and comment on work items (aka documents). Thus you build on each other’s knowledge (like standing on the shoulders of giants). Clearly this is better. Its potential is clear. So people try. Some convert and will become believers as well. The believers will always try to work in the new way. Use the tools of their new beliefs. Even though it’s not always easy to follow along this path…

However in the meantime there are the haters too. They believe there is nothing wrong with their ways. They have worked this way for many many many years. Even though they can see some benefits in the way of the believers. They also see the flaws. They notice that the products are different. The ways of working are more open. You could easily see flaws. People make mistakes. So it boils down that these people resist. And start hating what the believers are telling them. They will resist the change that is happening. At every chance they will point out the flaws in the new way of working and the new tools. Some even believe that it might work, but point out that there is a whole other religion. It’s similar but another church and their ways and tools are just more appealing. They work better, smoother and have been around just as long. And that church copies some of the features, but improves upon them.

The truth is that the majority of people within an enterprise is caught somewhere in between the lines. They yet don’t see the benefits of the new ways of working and don’t understand the new tools. In fact, they just need to get their work done and want to get out of the office in time. They are just overwhelmed with the all the new functions and old options they are used to. They don’t want to change, it’s working just fine. They just want to be productive and get their work done. Of course they want to collaborate. Most work in teams anyway, so they have worked that way, right? Over the years the tools keep changing over and over again.  And the collaboration is done by groups of people. So even if the individual believes there are better ways, there is still the bigger group that needs to change their ways. In the mean time the world is changing in an increasingly faster pace, with mobile and cloud introducing new options daily, it seems.

Culture eats...So this is the context of most enterprise organizations that have started down the route to become a more social or a more connected enterprise. Some start with a clear vision of a more collaborative future of the work environment, where people can collaborate seamlessly with others, where leadership recognizes that they need to differentiate themselves from their competitors. There are different strategies to reach those goals of course. But as we all know culture eats strategy for lunch. In large organizations it is very hard to change culture . Strong leadership is needed. But even if you have strong leadership and a great vision of the future, even if that’s there that’s not a recipient for success. Why? Well leadership changes. The change of culture is difficult. The payoff takes a while. Value is not immediately apparent. People resist change. And tools are flawed. But, but, but, in time this will all be fixed. If we just switch to a tool that works? Or it will work the tools will become better and work seamlessly. Tools are simple to change, it is just the technology. And then people will see the benefit in the end and start working differently. And while this is all happening around us, people suffer. They are faced with an ever growing multitude of tools and choices. Choices they have to make. People have become the “integrators” between all the tools for their new way of working. And most enterprises fail to implement this better future effortlessly. Simply because you need long term leadership in place and that’s not the way most companies are built. It’s about short term and immediate return.

But what if we can incrementally change and grow slowly toward a better future? In the next part of this essay I will explore why products don’t help as much as they could…

An update on IBM Connections and the POODLE vulnerability

*** UPDATE: 10:53GMT, 3 November 2014 ***

As reader Oliver Regelmann has commented below, these fixes are sadly not for the POODLE issue at all, but to fix an altogether different vulnerability in Connections, caused by a issue in Apache Commons FileUpload.

My fellow contributor, Sjaak Ursinus, created a detailed post a couple of weeks back detailing the impact that the POODLE vulnerability could have on your IBM Connections platform, and the steps required to code a route around the issue (though Sjaak himself noted that it wasn’t much of a workaround).  If you haven’t heard of POODLE, then I suggest you go read Sjaak’s post now.

Just a few days ago, IBM Connections product manager Luis Benitez added a comment to the post linking to IBMs technote on the topic.

Since then, IBM has released a further update, and this post attempts to bring you the latest news on the issue.

Firstly, the vulnerability itself:

A security vulnerability was reported against Apache Commons FileUpload. IBM Connections uses Apache Commons FileUpload. A version of the package that is vulnerable to these issues is used in several past versions of IBM Connections. To fix this vulnerability apply the fixes as detailed in the Remediation section.

CVE-ID: CVE-2014-0050
Description: MultipartStream.java in Apache Commons FileUpload before 1.3.1, as used in Apache Tomcat, JBoss Web, and other products, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (infinite loop and CPU consumption) via a crafted Content-Type header that bypasses a loop’s intended exit conditions.
CVSS Base Score: 5.0
CVSS Temporal Score: See http://xforce.iss.net/xforce/xfdb/90987 for the current score
CVSS Environmental Score*: Undefined
CVSS Vector: (AV:N/AC:L/Au:N/C:N/I:N/A:P)

This vulnerability affects all versions of IBM Connections, including all releases under IBM support and maintenance, i.e. 5.0, 4.5, 4.0 and 3.0.1.1.

The good news is that IBM has released fixes for all these versions, including the somewhat ancient 3.0.1.1, which I think is pretty impressive:

Apply the appropriate fix pack or APAR to remediate these issues as per this table. Note, if possible, it is always recommended to upgrade to the most recent release of IBM Connections.

Product Version Remediation
IBM Connections 5.0 Upgrade to IBM Connections 5.0 CR1
IBM Connections 4.5 Upgrade to IBM Connections 4.5 CR5 and apply Interim Fix APAR LO82478
IBM Connections 4.0 Upgrade to IBM Connections 4.0 CR4 and apply Interim Fix APAR LO82478
IBM Connections 3.0.1.1 Upgrade to IBM Connections 3.0.1.1 CR3 and apply Interim Fix APAR LO82478
IBM Connections 3.0.1 and earlier releases Either upgrade to IBM Connections 5.0 CR1 or upgrade to IBM Connections 3.0.1.1 CR3 , apply prerequisites and apply APAR LO82478

Whichever version of IBM Connections you run, my advice is that it really is imperative to get these fixes onto your systems as quickly as is reasonably possible – particularly if your Connections system is available to external access.

Using IBM Connections? Please complete this research survey!

My good friend and esteemed analyst and author, Michael Sampson, is asking for feedback on your usage of IBM Connections:

I am running a research survey on how organizations are using IBM Connections. The survey has 17 questions, spread across four pages:

  • Demographics and Current State of Connections
  • Current and Forecasted Use of IBM Connections
  • Upgrading to Connections 5.0
  • Satisfaction, Value, and Next Steps

If you are decision-maker with reference to IBM Connections at your organization, please take the survey.

If you know people who are using IBM Connections at their organization, could you please forward them the link and ask them to take the survey?

Michael has run similar surveys previously, and the results have been very useful in terms of understanding the take-up of Connections across the world, and also the value derived at both the individual and the organisational level.

Please do take a few minutes to complete the survey – your input will be much appreciated!

IBM Connections 4.5 CR5 is now available

When IBM Connections was first released, all patches to the on-premises code were released as iFixes – individual fix packages that could be installed and deinstalled individually. This was really flexible and allowed issues to be patched very quickly but also lead to very time-consuming patching processes and almost every system I visited had a different set of code updates installed. Not ideal!

For the past few versions, IBM has managed updates to Connections using Cumulative Refreshes (CRs). These packages consist of a set of cumulative fixes for each of IBM Connections applications.  This is a much more manageable approach, with approximately one CR released each quarter to be installed, and single fixes available from IBM support should an issue be particularly serious.

The latest CR for IBM Connections 4.5 has just been released:

[titled_box title = “Cumulative Refresh 5 summary”]CR5 is a set of 20 fix packages, which update each application entirely. Please apply all 20 fix packages together. The CCM (Connections Content Management) package should only be installed on Connections environments which have Content Management configured. In addition to these 20 fix packages, there is a new TDISOL version released along with CR5, which can be installed on any 4.5 Connections environment. Please download TDISOL 4.5 2014-07-10 from Fix Central.

CR5 uses the same version of the Update Installer as CR4, which is published in Fix Central under this link: 4.5.0.0-IC-Multi-UPDI-20131020

CR5 includes all fixes in CR1, CR2CR3, and CR4, plus fixes LO74499 and LO74629, listed in this document. It also includes LO74571 for Connections Mail support. It is not necessary to apply these previous fixes if you are installing CR5. CR5 can also be applied on environments that have those fixes already applied.[/titled_box]

You can download IBM Connections 4.5 CR5 from Fix Central.

Experiences with IBM Connections 5

GIS blog logoI just wanted to quickly recommend a couple of posts from Julius Schwarzweller at German IBM business partner, GIS AG.

He was quick to get hold of the new IBM Connections 5.0 release and has been working with it for the past few weeks. He’s been kind enough to document his findings on a couple of blog posts, My experiences with IBM Connections 5 and My Experiences with IBM Connections 5 – Part 2.

In part 1, Julius discusses some of the details of installation and of configuring the new External Communities functionality.

In part 2,  he goes onto outline more of the features that have been added to the new release.

Well worth digesting if you’ll be looking to deploy Connections 5 in the near future!