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Chatter (discontinued) vs. Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Chatter (discontinued)

    Score9.3 out of 10
    N/AChatter was a collaboration platform with integration into the business process and the ability to conduct actions like approving expense reports and creating support cases from the activity feed itself. It was acquired by Salesforce and is currently discontinued.N/A

    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor

    Score9 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    The Lightning Conductor is a content aggregation tool for Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Users can build rich, modern content reports based upon SharePoint lists, SharePoint Search, Microsoft Graph or Microsoft 365 Groups. Content can be aggregated from lists and libraries, and other applications such as Planner, To Do, OneDrive, and Teams.

    $2,200

    per year per installation

    Pricing
    Chatter (discontinued)Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Lightning Conductor WSP
    From 1950
    per year One WFE
    Lightning Conductor Enterprise Edition
    POA
    per year Four or more WFE
    Lightning Conductor Online
    From 2200
    per year per installation
    Lightning Conductor Plus (Includes Data Viewer)
    From 2500
    per year per installation
    Lightning Conductor Online Enterprise Edition (>10,000 users)
    POA
    per year per installation
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Chatter (discontinued)Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Prices stated are minimum per installation for "stock" products. $2.20 per user/year on top of base price. Enterprise editions can be amended to suit business needs if deemed necessary, additional costs incurred and TBD. All packages include free technical support. Free upgrades available to latest versions of tool as they are released. (online version)
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Chatter (discontinued)Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Considered Both Products
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Lightning Tools
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    90%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    81%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    12 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Chatter (discontinued)Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Project Management
    Comparison of Project Management features of Chatter (discontinued) and Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Feature
    Chatter (discontinued)
    8.3
    52 Ratings
    7% above category average
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    8.6
    2 Ratings
    11% above category average
    Task Management8.836 Ratings8.82 Ratings
    Gantt Charts8.019 Ratings00 Ratings
    Scheduling7.930 Ratings00 Ratings
    Workflow Automation8.932 Ratings00 Ratings
    Mobile Access8.049 Ratings00 Ratings
    Search7.944 Ratings8.42 Ratings
    Visual planning tools8.833 Ratings00 Ratings
    Communication
    Comparison of Communication features of Chatter (discontinued) and Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Feature
    Chatter (discontinued)
    8.4
    54 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    -
    Ratings
    Chat9.050 Ratings00 Ratings
    Notifications7.153 Ratings00 Ratings
    Discussions8.151 Ratings00 Ratings
    Surveys8.034 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledgebase8.036 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with GoToMeeting9.013 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts8.920 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Outlook9.023 Ratings00 Ratings
    File Sharing & Management
    Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Chatter (discontinued) and Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Feature
    Chatter (discontinued)
    8.5
    48 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    -
    Ratings
    Versioning8.828 Ratings00 Ratings
    Video files8.833 Ratings00 Ratings
    Audio files7.930 Ratings00 Ratings
    Document collaboration8.941 Ratings00 Ratings
    Access control8.034 Ratings00 Ratings
    Advanced security features8.929 Ratings00 Ratings
    Integrates with Google Drive9.018 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device sync8.027 Ratings00 Ratings
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    Chatter (discontinued)Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
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    Flock
    Score9.5 out of 10
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    Score9.5 out of 10
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    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
    Troop Messenger
    Score9.8 out of 10
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    Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
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    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Chatter (discontinued)Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (56 ratings)
    9.0
    (4 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.1
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    7.3
    (7 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.6
    (27 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Chatter (discontinued)Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Discontinued Products
    [Chatter] is the tool that makes our relations
    stronger. It provides advanced ways of communication. I have trained my many
    team members because of the easy features and functions of this tool, It is very user-friendly. Give it a try if you want to improve your relations with your
    customers. It will surely enhance the productivity of your organization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    Having experience of SharePoint On Premise and also SharePoint Online, there isn't an out of the box app/webpart that enables you to 'roll up content' from a variety of source's (in my case SP Lists, but there are many other data sources it works with) across site collections with an easy to use and intuitive interface which is what Lightning tools excels at.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Discontinued Products
    • Chatter provides us with a live internal conversation for all to see without the noise that other mediums have i.e. e-mail.
    • One of the main features that really works well is the 'Groups' that you can join. We have multiple groups set up to not only distribute procedural changes and communicate news etc, but also have conversations around upcoming tasks in the months ahead.
    • Chatter works really well in instances where we need to look over historical conversations that have been had and the sentiment of those conversations with our shareholders, often using hashtags.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    • Aggregate documents across SharePoint site & libraries
    • Filtering for owner/person responsible & due dates
    • Ease of end-user filtering on columns
    • Color-coding & other formatting
    Read full review
    Cons
    Discontinued Products
    • Groups does not have the private messaging functionality. Since most collaboration takes place in Groups, private messaging would allow for relevant conversations to be contained and not reside separately.
    • On a Group index page, there are two boxes for Information and Description. These content types seem redundant. You could replace both with a content type called About the Group. There could also be another box listing the Owners for quick reference.
    • On the main index page, the newsfeed has the same look and feel of most social platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Jive, IBM Connections, SharePoint. There could be an alternate display of tiles that shows People you interact with most frequently, Files you access most often, most recent Topics, etc. The display could be something like Delve in Microsoft Office 365.
    • On the main index page in the right rail, it would be useful to have the ability to incorporate RSS feeds to gather outside content. Many departments heavily leverage RSS feeds to compile competitive intelligence and cultivate general awareness.
    • For user profiles, can we combine Feed and Overview into one consolidated view? It would save users a click to find relevant information about the person. Also, the Contact module should also have the person's phone number for convenience.
    • The Files feature does not allow for real-time, concurrent document editing. You have to download the document, make your edits, save, and then upload a new version, which only allows for one editor at a time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    • Mobile Friendly
    • Calendar/Gantt views
    • Complex/Custom Logic
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Discontinued Products
    Chatter can fulfill at least 85-90% of our business requirements in an easy-to-use platform. Usability is a key requirement and we have had our share of bad usability experiences. In our experience, even the most novice users were able to pick up Chatter in a relatively short amount of time with little/no assistance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Discontinued Products
    It is easy to use but the impact of it feels like it is a bit antiquated. It does not feel collaborative and real time. Chatter is more akin to email versus Slack or Hangouts where it feels like problems are being solved as you are communicating.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Discontinued Products
    If I ever came to a situation where i needed help they do a very good job of getting back to us quickly to explain our error or why we are not seeing something. The support is quick to help provide groups or teams if you seek. Fortunately it is user friendly so I rarely need support
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    The Lightning Tools support team responds quickly, and team members are very friendly and helpful.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Discontinued Products
    Skype is used more for audio calls. Chatter is used to track updates on items of interest in Salesforce. Chatter is deeply integrated with other Salesforce products. No other competing products come close. Slack is a traditional project management tool. So it does not compete with Chatter. Because of its close integration with Salesforce, it is a unique tool for Salesforce users.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    I haven't found another product to compare this one to. Only in SharePoint Online which has a similar App 'Highlight Webpart' ... it's far too complicated to set up and requires learning yet another language and exporting and importing via PowerShell to get any real results that would be useful.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Discontinued Products
    • Chatter has closed deals faster, and brought us in revenue at a quicker rate in turn.
    • Chatter has left some things undone simply because people didn't see it and it has cost us a few deals.
    • Overall, Chatter has brought us a cleaner, more efficient Salesforce process and brought in revenue because of organization.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Lightning Tools
    • Policies easier to portray
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Lightning Tools Lightning Conductor Screenshots

    Screenshot of MODERN SHAREPOINT LIST ROLLUP
The Lightning Conductor is a SharePoint Content Aggregator that can be configured quickly by business users. The Lightning Conductor can be used to aggregate content from SharePoint Lists such as Tasks, Document Libraries, Contact Lists, and Custom Lists making it easy to view content in one place even if it is distributed across many sites and site collections. Key data can be highlighted using conditional formatting and data-bars as shown. Content from Search and Microsoft Graph can also be aggregated with the Lightning Conductor.Screenshot of CONTENT AGGREGATION WITHIN MICROSOFT TEAMS
The Lightning Conductor Web Part can be used within Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Teams. Even if content is stored within SharePoint sites, it is useful to have aggregated Documents, Tasks, Announcements, Calendars or Custom Lists from multiple sites displayed in a single handy view in Microsoft Teams. The Lightning Conductor can be added as a Teams Tab in any Microsoft Teams Channel.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT GRAPH
The Lightning Conductor can be used (without code) to aggregate content from Microsoft Graph as well as Search and SharePoint Lists. This example displays Microsoft Planner Plans and Microsoft Planner Tasks where users can Add new Tasks, Assign Users to Planner Tasks, Delete Tasks, and Complete Tasks. The same can be performed on Microsoft To Do items and displayed within Modern SharePoint pages or Microsoft Teams Tabs. The Lighting Conductor can also contain multiple views of content, making it ideal to display all of your tasks from SharePoint Task lists, Microsoft To Do and Microsoft Planner in a single web part or Teams Tab.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of BUILDING REPORTS ON MICROSOFT 365 GROUPS
Powered by Microsoft Graph, the Microsoft 365 Group Rollup Provider enables users to aggregate content by browsing and selecting Microsoft 365 Groups. Within Microsoft 365 Groups, you’ll be able to select entities such as Drive Items, Owners, Members, Planner Plans, Planner Tasks, Events, Posts,  Sites, Lists, and Calendars.

*Microsoft Graph Reports are only available for SharePoint Online and not SharePoint 2019.Screenshot of AGGREGATING USING SEARCH
When performance is critical, search can be used for rollups. The Lightning Conductor offers three data source configurations to get to content. Object Model (Real Time Aggregation from SharePoint Lists), Microsoft Graph (Aggregation from Graph Entities such as Planner, OneDrive, Outlook), and Search. The Search Data Source enables the aggregation of content from large SharePoint lists and libraries when performance is critical. Thousands of documents can be displayed in under a second using Search.Screenshot of HIGHLIGHTING KEY BUSINESS DATA WITHIN VIEWS
End users and Site Owners can highlight the data that is important to them, the data that they need to prioritize. Using conditional formatting, data bars, and icons, conditions can be configured to highlight the data that is most important. Icons and Data Bars can be any color or size desired. Examples include highlighting High Priority tasks, Showing data bars for the completion progress of Tasks, or indicating which tasks are assigned to any particular user.