Top News
Home Integrations
Category

Integrations

AnnouncementsIBM Connections CloudIntegrations

Docusign announced enhanced partnership with IBM, including new eSignature integrations

written by Stuart McIntyre

At their Momentum 2017 event this week, Docusign announced a number of new alliances with industry-leading vendors, including an enhanced partnership with IBM:

DocuSign today announced a deeper, strategic partnership with IBM to bring to market new capabilities to three solutions to help organizations of every size and industry advance their digital transformations.

 

DocuSign’s platform and eSignature service will be available within IBM Watson Workspace, IBM Connections and IBM Enterprise Content Management (ECM). These new advancements will bring together the power of cognitive insights, social collaboration and content management to deliver a new paradigm of business communication and productivity. The combination of DocuSign and Watson will help organizations come to agreement faster through intelligent, entirely digital transactions.

There was already a strong partnership in place around IBM Analytics, but this latest announcement sees Docusign eSignature technology fully baked into IBM collaboration and ECM platforms.

IBM Sign off Securely with DocusignIBM’s Daniel Davis writes:

Exchanging files, especially sensitive ones, requires a secure environment. Too often that security breaks down at a document’s very last phase when somebody pulls it out of its native platform to provide a final signature. If a document environment isn’t secure from beginning to end, it really isn’t secure at all.

That’s why any file-sharing solution needs to have a built-in signature function. With that in mind, IBM and DocuSign are completing an integration of DocuSign secure sign-off software and IBM Connections Files collaboration solution.

 

Using IBM Connections Files APIs and DocuSign APIs, this integration will give you the ability to collaborate on the preparation of a contract or agreement within IBM Docs and sign off on it in a secure manner. That means keeping the document secure throughout its entire life cycle.

This integration will be available in mid-May.

May 5, 2017 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
6.0AnnouncementsCiscoIBM ConnectionsIntegrations

IBM announces collaboration solutions with Cisco

written by Stuart McIntyre

A significant announcement letter from IBM this morning (formalising the news shared at IBM Connect 2017), delivering new integrated solution bundles in partnership with Cisco:

Collaboration solutions from IBM and Cisco bring together the key applications that workers need to be productive and effective: video, voice, unified communications, enterprise social networks, team collaboration, email, and calendar offerings. With the integration of IBM Connections Cloud and Cisco communication capabilities, modern workers can now communicate and collaborate easily across their teams, with their partners, and with their customers. This powerful combination makes information and trained specialists easier to find and creates more personal and effective collaboration.

 

Collaboration solutions from IBM and Cisco include integrations between:

  • IBM Verse email and calendar
  • IBM Connections enterprise social network
  • Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings
  • Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings, and Cloud Advanced Meetings
  • Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll
  • Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus
  • Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International

The announcement letter discusses the aims of the partnership, specific integrations that are enabled by the combined IBM and Cisco products, as well as the offerings that can now be ordered from IBM via Passport Advantage.

New Integrations

Here are the specific integrations now supported:

  • Use simplified ordering capability to license the full suite of Cisco Chat and Meeting capabilities combined with IBM Mail and Social.
  • Enable single-sign-on between IBM and Cisco offerings.
  • Launch WebEx from Connections Cloud.
  • Launch WebEx Personal Meeting from Connections Cloud.
  • Leverage my WebEx meeting as the default meeting in my Verse calendar invites.
  • Launch or join a WebEx meeting from Verse.
  • Use iOS to share content from Connections or Verse within WebEx and Spark:
    • WebEx mobile can share a file from Connections Files Cloud.
    • Connections Mobile client enables a file to be opened in WebEx of Spark mobile on iOS.
    • Spark Mobile enables sharing a file from Connections on iOS.
    • Verse mobile enables sharing an attachment in WebEx or Spark mobile on iOS.
  • Click to Spark from Nav bar.
  • Click to Chat from Connections Cloud Business card to Spark.
  • Click to Jabber from Nav bar.
  • Click to Chat from Connections Cloud Business card to Jabber.

Many of these were demonstrated on stage at the Connect keynote and breakout sessions, and in many cases, effectively replace existing integrations with IBM Sametime platforms and apps.

New IBM Product Offerings

There are 17 new Cisco-related Passport Advantage products that can be ordered (along with the relevant renewal parts etc, not listed here):

Program name/DescriptionPart number
Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9GLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party OverageD1T9HLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging and Basic Meetings Named User 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9JLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings and Advanced Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9KLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings and Advanced Meetings Employee Count 3rd Party OverageD1T9LLL
Cisco Spark Business Messaging, Basic Meetings and Advanced Meetings Named User 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9MLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Employee Count 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9NLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Employee Count 3rd Party OverageD1T9PLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Named User 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9QLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus Employee Count 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9RLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus Employee Count 3rd Party OverageD1T9SLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus Named User 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9TLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International Employee Count 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9ULL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International Employee Count 3rd Party OverageD1T9VLL
Cisco WebEx Conferencing Audio Toll Plus International Named User 3rd Party Per MonthD1T9WLL
IBM Collaboration Solutions and Cisco Spark Solutions Support Employee Count Per AnnumD1T9XLL
IBM Collaboration Solutions and Cisco Spark Solutions Support Named User Per AnnumD1T9YLL

My Thoughts

The Cisco partnership is clearly hugely important to IBM’s future success in the collaboration marketplace (alongside the similar relationship with Box). Whilst I haven’t seen anything publicly stated regarding the future of IBM Sametime, it is becoming ever more apparent that those solutions are becoming legacy offerings and the future for meetings at least is wrapped up in the product offerings and integrations listed above.

Both Spark and Webex are competent and comprehensive enterprise-ready platforms, receiving regular updates and offering impressive support (at least when offered directly).

My hope for the combination of IBM Connections and these platforms is that the integrations become significantly more than just point-in-time snapshots of the possibilities they enable, and instead become solutions that:

  • deliver enhanced value now
  • are updated as a whole as all the individual products get revved independently on a regular basis
  • continue to operate effectively as Pink is made available and beyond…

The proof of the value of this partnership will be not be seen in 2017 or even 2018, but when these combined solutions are delivering real value to customers (and their users) in 2019 and beyond.

And You?

I’d love to know if you’re planning to deploy the integrated IBM/Cisco solutions in your business, and if so, what use cases you’re looking to support. Leave a comment below!

April 25, 2017 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
ChatRoomsWidget
IBM ConnectionsIBM SametimeIntegrations

The new IBM Sametime widgets for IBM Connections are now available

written by Stuart McIntyre

I posted last week that new Sametime integration had been announced for IBM Connections, in the form of Meetings and Chat Room widgets.  However, at the time they had not yet been released.

Well, good news! They are now available for download from the IBM Collaboration Solutions Catalog:

IBM Sametime logoIBM Sametime Meeting Rooms Widget for IBM Connections:

The Meeting Rooms widget can help a social business activate networks of people to make faster expertise-based decisions, speed up business processes and address customer needs.

The Meeting Rooms Widget links to your existing Sametime Meetings server.

The Meetings Rooms Widget provides the following functionality for Community Members:

  • Create a Meeting Room from the Widget (Community Owners only)
  • View the most active Meeting Rooms in the sidebar widget
  • View the full list of Meeting Rooms associated with the Community
  • Click to open Meeting Rooms in your web browser or Sametime desktop client
  • Sort Meeting Rooms by Meeting Room name, owner name, number of active participants, or most recently accessed
  • Click to manage Meeting Rooms (Community Owners only)

For instructions to install the Meeting Rooms Widget, please see the IBM Sametime wiki article: Meeting Rooms Widget for IBM Connections. IBM Sametime Chat Rooms Widget for IBM Connections:

For organisations that need advanced collaboration, the Chat Rooms Widget allows you to add persistent Chat Rooms to a Community. Chat Rooms allow Community members to communicate and share information with colleagues online and in real time.

The Chat Rooms Widget links to your existing Sametime Chat Rooms server.

The Chat Rooms Widget provides the following functionality for Community Members:

  • Create a Chat Room from the Widget (Community Owners only)
  • View available Chat Rooms in the sidebar widget
  • Click to open Chat Rooms in your web browser or Sametime desktop client
  • Sort Chat Rooms
  • Display the number of active users in the Chat Room, and the number of lines which are unread by you

For instructions to install the Chat Rooms Widget, please see the IBM Sametime wiki article: Chat Rooms Widget for IBM Connections. IBM Sametime Video Chat Widget for IBM Connections:

The Video Chat Widget enhances social communications with audio and video features that allow you to see and speak to colleagues.

The Video Chat Widget links to your existing Sametime Meetings server. The widget provides Connections Communities with audio and video capabilities, to allow your Community members to communicate in real-time.

For more information about the Video Chat Widget, please see the IBM Sametime wiki article: Video Chat widget for IBM Connections. As I commented on Marlon’s Sametime Blog post announcing this, I’d love to see some screenshots of the new widgets in action, however that just provides an incentive to get these widgets downloaded and installed!

They all require a minimum of IBM Sametime 8.5.2 IFR1+.  The Meeting and Chat Rooms widgets require IBM Connections 4.0+, whereas the Video Chat widget will operate against Connections 3.0+.

December 9, 2013 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
IBM ConnectionsIBM SametimeIntegrations

IBM Sametime 9 Hot Fix 1 enables additional Connections integration

written by Stuart McIntyre

A couple of great new features shipped in IBM Sametime 9.0 Hot Fix 1 last week:

 

What’s New in Hot Fix 1

In Hot Fix 1, the following features were added to Sametime 9 Communicate, Conference, and Complete offerings:

The Chat Rooms widget displays a list of Sametime chat rooms and allows a user to enter a chat room directly from Connections. The Meeting Rooms widget displays a list of Sametime meeting rooms and allows a user to join a meeting directly from Connections.

Aspects of this feature had been available as a limited preview before now, so it is great to see this added to the full GA version of the code.  Here’s some more info:

The Chat Rooms widget provides a direct link from a Connections Community to Sametime Advanced persistent chat rooms. In a chat room, users can participate in a live conversation with other users. The chat room conversation is persisted, and can be viewed or revived at a later time. The Chat Rooms widget provides a list of chat rooms which have been created for the specific Community. Clicking a chat room link redirects the user to that chat room on the Sametime Advanced web user interface. Chat rooms can be created using the widget, which will be directly associated with the Community.

and:

The Meeting Rooms widget integrates Connections Communities and Sametime Meetings. Owners of a Community can create a meeting room, and members of the Community can view a list of available meeting rooms and join those meetings. When creating a meeting room, the widget provides fields to configure the room.

The Chat Rooms widget requires a Sametime Advanced infrastructure, whereas the Meeting Rooms one only needs a Sametime Meetings server.

These features were previewed at IBM Connect 2013.

Both widgets will be available for download from the IBM Collaboration Solutions Catalog soon (they were slated for release before the end of November, but have not appeared yet).

December 3, 2013 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
IBM ConnectionsIntegrationsVideo

VSee ships integration with IBM Connections

written by Stuart McIntyre

Love love love this!

VSee’s simplest one-click video conferencing and screen share is better than Skype, and you can use it right from your IBM Connections platform without any hoo-hah. Make your virtual teams more productive and social. Effortlessly put a live face to presentations, meetings, and work sessions and:

  • build durable relationships
  • resolve complex issues
  • convey trust
  • shorten the sales cycle
  • recruit the best-fit talent for your team

VSee integration with IBM Connections allows interactions to smoothly flow from IBM Connections to VSee IM to VSee video conference + screen share. Also, with single sign on, seamless no-admin download, and one-click calling, VSee makes it easy to get things done.

To my eyes, this integration shows video conferencing and IM done right in the context of IBM Connections communities. Whilst IBM has done some decent work integrating Sametime and Connections (presence awareness, business card etc) I don’t think that the integrated solution really shows Sametime’s functionality as well as it could currently. VSee’s solution is elegant, easy to deploy and really shows off the video conferencing abilities of the platform.

I’m also thrilled to see a steady flow of new ISVs working with IBM Connections as a platform. Nothing shows the vitality of a product better than the ISV ecosystem that develops around it!

November 8, 2012 0 comment
0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest