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HCL Notes

Score3.5 out of 10

92 Reviews and Ratings

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What is HCL Notes?

Notes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features HCL Notes has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 92 ratings of HCL Notes's features
View all features

Top Performing Features

  • Internal knowledgebase

    Users can author or access “How-to” help and reference tips about internal processes.

    Category average: 7.5

  • Integrates with GoToMeeting

    Integrates with GoToMeeting for web conferencing.

    Category average: 8.6

  • Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts

    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts.

    Category average: 6.2

Areas for Improvement

  • Audio files

    Supports audio file types, such as .mp3, .mp4, and .wav

    Category average: 7.8

  • Access control

    Users can control access to (shared) files, including different levels of access such as view-only or permission to edit.

    Category average: 8

  • Workflow Automation

    Workflow automation is the ability to route work requests along an approval process automatically.

    Category average: 6.8

Reviews

What users are saying about HCL Notes.
View all reviews

HCL

Karan Kundra
Data Engineer I in Information Technology at Innovaccer Analytics Pvt Ltd (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

HCL Notes provides business collaboration functions, such as email, calendars, to-do lists, contact management, discussion forums, file sharing, websites, instant messaging, blogs, document libraries, user directories, and custom applications. It can also be used with other HCL Domino applications and databases. I particularly use it for email, calendars, and to-do lists. It helps me to be more organized and save time by making everything stay at on place with easy access and user-friendly experience.

Pros

  • Helps me with notifying the email status.
  • Helps me with better organization of my time on calendars.
  • With the help of calendars, I am also able to use to-do lists to adjust my time and hence saving me a lot of extra effort.
  • I can also save important notes as well.

Cons

  • Could be more user friendly with a better UI.
  • Can add time blocker to be synced with google.

Return on Investment

  • It has helped me with getting a good and clear picture of my day at work and hence helped in improving my efficiency at work.

Alternatives Considered

Google Assistant

Other Software Used

Google Assistant

Convenient Platform For Global Organizational Management

Incentivized
Mogana TashianiView profile
Research Analyst and Consulting (Technology) in Professional Services at Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • HCL Notes can be integrated with other software platforms such as Sametime chat, Concur (expense management platform), and Productivity Management System (platform for consultants/analyst to access to assigned projects). For example, once the status of my claim expenses is changes by the finance team, I'll receive automatic notification from Concur to IBM Notes.
  • Calendar Management - Once I accepted the meeting invite, it will automatically block my calendar and all I need to do to see all my meetings of the day/week is to simply check my calendar in the HCL Notes. Moreover, I can book any meeting rooms in my company and the booking will be made visible to all other employees so that they can see the availability of the room when planning a meeting.
  • Secured Platform- All email from the external party will be hold by the delivery system of the IBM Notes. User can either allow or block the email or site easily.
  • Global Meeting - Regional or cross-regional global meeting can be easily participated remotely. With HCL Notes installed in my laptop/notebook, I can conveniently join company meeting from my working desk or even when travelling.

Cons

  • HCL Notes needs to largely improve the quality online web/internet browsing as HCL Notes takes considerably long time to connect and load of the web content.
  • The links shared in HCL Notes emails won't be connected often and the web content won't be visible sometimes. I need to copy and paste the link in Google Chrome to view the web content.
  • Sometimes, HCL Notes will get jammed and need to restart all over.

Return on Investment

  • Positive impact on ROI as HCL Notes streamlined the internal process decisions and operations that otherwise would have taken long time to approve.
  • Enables consultancy project planning and execution with global to be fast and easy, doesn't need to have frequent phone calls.
  • No need to have multiple software systems as HCL Notes is very versatile.

Other Software Used

Zoom Video Webinar, HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM), Concur Expense

IBM Notes Full Feature Email and More, a Good Mid-Size Solution

Incentivized
Christopher Stark
Division Network Support Specialist in Information Technology at The Salvation Army (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Data sharing via small database format is valuable as they are quickly deployed, easily managed and distributed on backend email servers.
  • Integrated messaging allows quick communications between geographical sites reducing long distance costs.
  • Policy documents for registering new users, setting initial security levels, assigning default database access is managed easily with the admin client.

Cons

  • There is room for improvement in the OS compatibility arena. IBM Notes tends to run behind and crash issues exist.
  • I would like the Recent Contacts feature removed, it has caused many issues within our organization, it is activated by default after a local installation.
  • Client misunderstanding of the "All Documents" view. This is a dangerous view, primarily because many users misunderstand it as a "folder".

Return on Investment

  • As an overall solution for email communication, it has been effective in so far as the licensing per client being very competitive!
  • Having largely autonomous administrative control per datacenter has been valuable for expedience. Sites do not have to wait to enable features.
  • Availability of qualified administrative personnel or the lack thereof has impacted management and deployment.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Office 2016, Veritas Backup Exec, SolarWinds Dameware Remote Everywhere, SolarWinds IP Address Manager

Strong Secure Email Collaborative Suite with Competitive Edge!

Incentivized
Matthew J. FitzpatrickView profile
Sr Technology Engineer in Information Technology at Travelers (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • It has a really strong and robust database that's extremely scalable and holds up well to thousands of users and many different environments.
  • It has a really good enterprise-grade framework for development custom database applications
  • All of the custom database applications along with the email all have a nice uniform look and feel so their easy-to-use.
  • I really like how it's developed and supported on every client OS (Windows, OSX, Linux)! The competitors definitely do NOT offer this (M$).

Cons

  • I would say the GUI could use some improving to make it more appealing to less saavy and new users
  • I don't really have any other cons

Return on Investment

  • Again I use it EVERY SINGLE DAY and HEAVILY rely on it!
  • It's had an extremely POSITIVE impact on me and even a lot of my clients. I introduced it to some of them and they picked it up with minimal learning curve and really enjoy the convenience and really strong security of IBM NOTES.
  • It's definitely a LOT more secure than the M$ competitor.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Exchange

Other Software Used

QuickBooks Pro, Adobe Acrobat DC, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), WordPress, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization

IBM Notes: Decent interface, old school style

Incentivized
Mark FranklinView profile
RLDP Consultant - Prospect Center in Sales at Sun Life Financial (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • Collaboration
  • Scheduling
  • Communication

Cons

  • Archaic
  • Weak user interface
  • crashes frequently

Return on Investment

  • Higher productivity
  • Decreased efficiency at times due to slow program/difficulties with figuring out how to use the program
  • better organization

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