IBM Connections: Mastering a Rollout for up to 600 kingdoms and 12'000 Users - Roberto Mazzoni, University of Zurich and Sandra Bühler, Belsoft Collaboration @ Engage

1. IBM Connections: Mastering a
Rollout for up to 600
kingdoms and 12 000 Users
Roberto Mazzoni,
University of Zurich, IT www.zi.uzh.ch
Sandra Bühler,
Belsoft Collaboration AG www.belsoft.ch
1#engageug

2. Agenda
• The speakers
• The University of Zurich
• The collaboration stack of the University of Zurich
• IBM Connections – a long, long journey (what we did
wrong and what works now)

3. Sandra Bühler - Introduction
sandra.buehler@belsoft.ch
@SandraCH
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandrabuehler

4. My office…
as often as I can

5. Roberto Mazzoni - Introduction
roberto.mazzoni@uzh.ch
@davoser
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertomazzoni

6. Not far from Sandra’s
preferred office – but ..

7. University of Zurich - Introduction

8. University of Zurich – Structure
• People – including guests approximately 35,000 members
• over 26,000 students
• 562 professors
• 3’237 academic personnel
• 2’062 administrative personnel
• approx. 800 private lecturers / nominal professors
• approx. 2000 assistant lecturers
• numerous guests
• Decentralized and self-governed – 180 self-governed units
• 7 faculties
• approx. 150 institutes
• about 15 competence centers
• numerous associated institutes

9. University of Zurich – Structure -> 2nd Glance
• People – including guests approximately 35,000 members
• 562 professors
• approx. 800 private lecturers / nominal professors
• approx. 2000 assistant lecturers
• Decentralized and self-governed – 180 self-governed
units
• 7 faculties
• approx. 150 institutes
• numerous associated institutes

10. IBM Collaboration Software @ UZH –
History and Today
• 2005
• The university's IT strategy retains the evaluation of a groupware containing
the usual suspects: email, scheduling, contacts, tasks, mobile synchronization
• Opting for document management, synchronous communication, workflows
• Replacing the old solutions for approx. 35,000 users (email only, some
scheduling solutions)
• 2007 - 2009
• Open tenders
• End of evaluation, final decision done by the university management
• Internal “Going live” with IT services
• 2010
• Official “Going live” and migration of the 40'000 users (yes, we found some
more...)
• 2011
• Sametime Standard with Sametime Meetings
• Connections - adoption only by IT department

11. IBM Notes® @ UZH – History -> 2nd Glance
• 2008
• End of evaluation, final decision done by the university management
• 2009
• Internal “Going live” with IT services
• 2010
• Official “Going live” and migration of the 40'000 users (yes, they found some
more...)

12. IBM Collaboration Software @ UZH –
History and Today
• 2011
• Sametime Standard with Sametime Meetings
• Connections - adoption only by IT department
• 2013
• Connections for projects and pilot groups
• 2014
• Preparing Roll Out for all employees
• 2015
• Starting Roll out

13. IBM Notes® @ UZH – History -> 2nd Glance
• Huge and successful migration to Domino/Notes in
Switzerland -> and (almost) nobody knew until November
2015 …

14. Facts & Figures: email is not dead -> at all
• 553’000 internal emails daily
• 110’000 emails received from Internet daily
• 84’000 (76 %) classified as SPAM
• 47'000 sent to Internet daily
• 140’000 email addresses registered for 46’000 persons or
functions in the Domino Directory

15. Facts & Figures: IBM Domino/Notes – daily
access by email clients (2016)
IMAP
21%
POP3 3%
Notes
11%iNotes
(17'000) 57%
Traveler
8%
Android 22%
iOS 73%
Other
5%
TRAVELER: 3440 DEVICES

16. IBM Connections – the next step in
collaboration

17. IBM Connections – a long, long journey
• 2011: IBM Connections kicks in
• Licensing support by Belsoft
• Missing Management Support
• First rollout within IT Service
• Connections 3.0
• We did wrong what can be done wrong
• No management support
• No plans which component should be used in which manner
• No community manager established
• Nevertheless: IT department employees won’t miss it after
short time of usage!
• Upgrade to 4.0
• Ask the experts: Simon Vaughan (@SimplyS1mon) to mention one who really helped to fix it

18. IBM Connections – a long, long journey – 2nd
Glance
• Combination of two no-no’s
• No management support and no Community Managers established
• The role of HR
• Let’s have a minute of silence…

19. IBM Connections challenges – Change the
behavior of the users
• It is a great platform - can be spread even if
your management does not promote it
• Show the features people always missed for
their work
• It is not “normal” to work with a Social Business environment
• It is not a matter of age !
• People like email, they used it for years
• People are shy (you won’t have digital natives in your administration)
• People like folders (!)
• People can’t distinguish between privacy and transparency

20. IBM Connections – Integrate to your
environment
• Make IBM Notes/iNotes and IBM Connections one experience
if you have Notes
• Add IBM Connections to Notes
• Easiest way to get rid of attachments in emails
• Get your tasks from your activities to your calendar
• Show up your community calendar in Notes
• Get the profile pictures back to Notes
through Sametime
• IBM Connections Desktop Plug-in
• Replaces your File Shares with much more
benefits (Versions just to mention one)
• Yes, the OS X Finder integration is
different

21. IBM Connections approaches – Integrate
people with their projects
• Identify stakeholders that will help spread the word
and help them with their projects
• Integrate in working environment
• show advantages and simplifications in the daily work
• Find teams that cross borders
• Adopt communities to their needs
• University Management
• University Crisis management group needs to collaborate with all other departments
• Main library wants to collaborate with all department libraries
• Faculty projects need collaboration tools (Physics Olympiad will be hold in Zurich 2016)

22. Simple but effective
Folder Access for Files
• University Management
• Grants access to stakeholders to minutes of meetings with
Connection Files
• Reuse Notes Groups for access management using folders only
• Flexibility of different access models

23. Be prepared for hazards
• University Crisis management group
• Scenarios in case of hazards ready to use
• Radiation Protection
• Biological Safety/Security
• Fire Safety
• Chemical Safety
• Hazardous Waste Management
• People from different departments involved in associated
communities
• Subcommunitiesfor handling hazards

24. Be prepared for hazards
• Content “private” only
• Yes, it’s fine to keep Communities restricted
• ensure that members gain confidence
• also social business must be learned
• prepare content for later public access

25. Private Communities 2nd Glance
• Yes, it’s fine to keep “some” Communities restricted
• ensure that members gain confidence
• also social business must be learned
• prepare content for later public access

26. Be prepared for hazards
• Option to join on request
• Yes, we needed this feature!

27. Enable collaboration
• Main Library
• 1 public library (not only University Library, Zentralbibliothek)
• 1 main library for science
• 1 main library for medicine
• 50 libraries spread across the city
• one library system hosted by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
for all

28. Enable collaboration
• Main Library
• project targeted to determine
efficient usage
• Different communities with one
“portal” community, some of them including
subcommunities
• Half day training programs for Community owner

29. Enable collaboration – 2nd Glance
• Main Library
• 50 libraries spread over the campus
• Within the 150 departments, with great
attention for 560 kingdoms
• Who could spread the voice better ?

30. The role of HR – or forget the minute of silence
• If you want to forget your minute of silence…
• Identify the needs HR has
• Find stakeholders willing to optimize processes
• And now the voice is spread over 150 units!
• Grazie, Marco!

31. Rollout for 12’000 people
• Most of them will not play an active role
• Prepare the rollout and spread the voice
• YES, HR can help!
• Units want to use it!

32. Workshop for future “Community Managers”
• Rollout is not a technical challenge !!!
• It’s a organisationalchallenge
• Prepare units to be aware of it
• Community Manager
• There is no technical role for it
• People need to be enabled for it
• Workshops
• Your users know what they need
• Let them find out and assist them
• IT will be critical: loss of control

33. It’s open – let it open !
• Let them use and show them all options !
• Notes integration
• Desktop plugins
• Mobile Apps
• If you miss it: they will found out!
• You can’t loose control – you will never have!
• It’s social !
• It’s open, let it open
• People need to learn and will learn to handle it
• Discuss consequences of errors

34. IBM Connections at daily work
• my favorite
• the one that had the maximum
stress for end of last year
• Members today 7000 and counting …

35. Thank you for your attention