Concord vs. HCL Notes

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Concord
Score 6.7 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Concord is a way to create, collaborate on, sign, and store agreements; designed to be the only tool needed for contracts, so users can spend less time juggling between applications, editors, and e-signature tools. The vendor states over 500,000+ companies use Concord with their contracts. With Concord, users can: Draft, negotiate, sign, and manage every contract across an organization — all in one place Work on Concord, Word, or Google…
$17
per user / month
HCL Notes
Score 6.6 out of 10
N/A
Notes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.N/A
Pricing
ConcordHCL Notes
Editions & Modules
Standard
$17
per user / month
Pro
$34
per user / month
Free
Free
Enterprise
Contact sales team
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
ConcordHCL Notes
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsAll inclusive pricing built for you. Concord pricing includes implementation, services, and unlimited support. All Concord plans include unlimited documents and unlimited e-signatures.
More Pricing Information
Features
ConcordHCL Notes
Contract Authoring
Comparison of Contract Authoring features of Product A and Product B
Concord
8.7
6 Ratings
5% above category average
HCL Notes
-
Ratings
Contract creation9.76 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract templates8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Clause library/saved fields8.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Guided logic9.11 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract Collaboration
Comparison of Contract Collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Concord
9.1
6 Ratings
8% above category average
HCL Notes
-
Ratings
Contract sharing9.46 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract editing8.46 Ratings00 Ratings
Collaborating on contracts8.76 Ratings00 Ratings
MS Word plug-in8.52 Ratings00 Ratings
Approval process9.75 Ratings00 Ratings
Interdepartmental workflows9.75 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract Monitoring
Comparison of Contract Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Concord
9.0
6 Ratings
6% above category average
HCL Notes
-
Ratings
Contract database8.76 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract search7.76 Ratings00 Ratings
Contract milestone reminders & alerts9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom contract reports9.54 Ratings00 Ratings
Tracking contract status9.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance check9.11 Ratings00 Ratings
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Concord
-
Ratings
HCL Notes
6.9
10 Ratings
13% below category average
Task Management00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings5.06 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Search00 Ratings6.09 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Concord
-
Ratings
HCL Notes
9.2
10 Ratings
14% above category average
Chat00 Ratings6.010 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings9.57 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings9.14 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings10.03 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings10.05 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Concord
-
Ratings
HCL Notes
7.6
9 Ratings
7% below category average
Versioning00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings6.05 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings6.08 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings10.02 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Best Alternatives
ConcordHCL Notes
Small Businesses
PandaDoc
PandaDoc
Score 8.9 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
PandaDoc
PandaDoc
Score 8.9 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Conga CLM
Conga CLM
Score 8.6 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
ConcordHCL Notes
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(6 ratings)
7.0
(16 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
1.7
(5 ratings)
Usability
9.7
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.4
(3 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
ConcordHCL Notes
Likelihood to Recommend
Concord
Concord is honestly suited for all types of organizations because the software is flexible in its application and very easy to implement. In addition, Concord offers exceptional customer service with professionals who will work with you to ensure success, whether it be through training, problem-solving, or even finding ways to engage employees to maximize the benefit of the software. Most appreciated about Concord is their willingness to listen to their users to constantly evolve with new features or added functionality based on customer feedback.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
I often work with teams from other country and regions, hence HCL Notes is a very useful platform for internal company management operations. It standardized organisational work standards in most of the offices worldwide. HCL Notes also enables chat with other team around the world that I find very helpful when initiating conversation or just want to have a quick update rather than sending emails and waiting for replies. However, HCL Notes is not very efficient in web browsing and user still need to use other internet service providers.
Read full review
Pros
Concord
  • Templates are easy to create and utilize.
  • Concord has its internal e-signature tool.
  • Concord can group by template, active, in progress, etc. and color codes the same.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
  • 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$).
Read full review
Cons
Concord
  • Make it easier to find the templates from any page
  • Improve the search function--it's sometimes difficult to find specific documents when searching
  • Change back to "limited editor" and "no editing rights" when sharing documents; the new term of "viewer" makes it seem like nothing can be edited at all
Read full review
HCL Technologies
  • Notes' backwards compatibility sometimes gets in the way. Menus are cluttered with extraneous, outdated options and features that modern users will never use, and Preferences are often difficult to navigate for those coming from Gmail or Outlook. We have greatly simplified this via Policies, but users still find it daunting to go through all the options that are available.
  • The IBM Notes client for Windows & Mac is essentially the Eclipse Java development platform...so it is HUGE. Performance initially was very slow but IBM has done a good job of speeding things up. As IBM moves more toward cloud-delivered applications, this will not be as much of a problem.
  • Notes and Domino can be complex to manage for administrators who are more accustomed to ActiveDirectory, Group Policy, etc. Editing a notes.ini file to add a feature, or working with XML files by hand to create a SmartUpgrade kit can be daunting to those coming from more modern administrative roles.
  • Some users claim to "hate" Notes mail. While I have heard this less and less over the past 10 years, we have had 3rd party software offer plugins to Outlook and it's rare to see any for Notes.
  • The client update process should be automated more. I would like to see the Notes client update quietly and quickly more like an Adobe software update. If an update fails it should automatically try again without prompting the user over and over.
  • Notes multiple language spell checking is a downloaded add-on Java-based resource that has to be deployed in a convoluted way that is difficult for users to grasp. Therefore any foreign language spell check updates must be done individually per Notes client by IT, which is unfortunate. I would prefer to see that be a "live download" update option for users to get directly from IBM (don't make me download it and put it on my network).
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Concord
No answers on this topic
HCL Technologies
I've been in IT business and as a Programmer/Developer for 20+ years with too many programming languages experiences/back ground (C/C++/Visual Basic/Basic Program/Unix/COBOL/Java). Also with 18+ years with Lotus Notes/IBM Domino, I am still and always think Lotus Notes is the best RAD platform available!. When the time where resource is very limited and the expectation is very high and the turn around is too short, IBM Domino/Notes is the platform to use and it's the only choice available.
Read full review
Usability
Concord
Concord is extremely user friendly and saves me so much time! How else would I be able to manage all of the contracts for 9 different agencies all by myself?!?
Read full review
HCL Technologies
Easy to use for the user, most of the apps we developed, there is not much need for user training. Most of the times, we just do a demo to the users group and they can pick up from there.
Read full review
Support Rating
Concord
I gave it a five because it was the closest to a neutral response. I have not had issues with Concord and have not had a reason to contact support, so I don't have an accurate opinion here. From my conversations with our legal team, it seems they have been able to work with the support team at Concord to get any potential issues resolved in a timely manner.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
I've been using the production for a very long time and very happy with it. Also, all the online resources and forums for notes is very friendly and easy/quick for getting help. I found out that compared to Microsoft or Oracle or any other platforms, IBM Notes online forum is the best I have seen.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Concord
No answers on this topic
HCL Technologies
Implementation is easy and smooth if the requirement is well gathered/documented. Notes is a RAD platform, all projects in Notes is simple in the implementation step.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Concord
I would rather not compare apples and apples nor apples and oranges, and just share Concord has been an excellent Contract Management System for current organization.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
Outlook has been considered for years as a replacement platform. Pricing and support staff made it prohibitive. Our long-time use of Microsoft Office productivity suite naturally led us to consider the adoption of Office365. A recent investigation told us that Azure Cloud services propel an O365 solution to the forefront. Early adopters in international divisions have paved the way for Azure and O365.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Concord
  • Since our implementation, I am saving a few hours a month in managing our IC contracts.
  • When people have questions about contracts, now it's clear "Hey, look in Concord" versus "Hey, does John or Sally have this contract?".
Read full review
HCL Technologies
  • Over the years, we have lost countless hours of productivity from the thousands of crashes we have experienced.
  • One benefit of IBM Notes is that it is very simple to train a new user on. Many people prefer and are familiar with Google tools, but those that use IBM Notes have very little trouble acclimating themselves.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Concord Screenshots

Screenshot of Using approval workflows decreases contract cycle times while guaranteeing correct signatures are secured, further driving compliance and protecting against risks.Screenshot of Advanced reporting empowers greater insights into the data in your contracts.Screenshot of The Concord Inbox with a global search and advanced filtering makes organizing and finding documents easy, and streamlines completing contract-related tasks.Screenshot of Using approval workflows decreases contract cycle times while guaranteeing correct signatures are secured, further driving compliance and protecting against risks.Screenshot of Online editing and redlining and a summary sheet with a discussion panel keep all conversations and changes tracked. A Word integration allows offline edits to also be tracked.Screenshot of Enable fully executed contracts with legally admissible e-signatures — at no additional cost.