Notes from HCL (formerly from IBM, acquired by HCL in late 2018) is a collaboration platform based on the Lotus platform.
N/A
Miro
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Miro is the AI Innovation Workspace that brings teams and AI together to plan, co-create, and build the next big thing, faster. With the canvas as the prompt, Miro's collaborative AI workflows keep teams in the flow of work, scale shifts in ways of working, and drive organization-wide transformation.
$10
per month per user
Pricing
HCL Notes
Miro
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
1. Free - To discover what Miro can do. Always free
$0
2. Starter - Unlimited and private boards with essential features
$8
per month (billed annually) per user
3. Business - Scales collaboration with advanced features and security
$16
per month (billed annually) per user
4. Enterprise - For work across the entire organization, with support, security and control, to scale
contact sales
annual billing per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL Notes
Miro
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
Yes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
Additional Details
—
Monthly billing also available at $10 per month for the Starter plan, or $20 for the Business plan.
Used MURAL at the beginning of the pandemic when they probably still were not up to speed with all the new users - back then it was laggy and unusable for most of the team (except the ones with super-fast internet). Have not encountered similar problems with Miro.
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.
Actually I answered this question on the first step. Detailing it I’d say that it’s comfortable to use for company education or brainstorm sessions, but I lack of flexibility to use it for operations quick stuff cuz team plans are limited
Makes internal coordination between admin team and tutors extremely painless. It's like a single place where everyone can drop ideas, get updates and notes without loss of context which usually happens in long email threads.
Versioning and board history are handled very well, which drastically reduces the workload. They help me track how a policy or math guideline has evolved, and also make it easy to revert changes if something doesn't work.
Comments stick exactly where they are meant to, making internal reviews much clearer. Admins don't have to guess which note refers to which rule or section.
Exports are clean, so even non-Miro teammates get it instantly.
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).
As a designer, I miss some more creative features. I can't even get really into designing small things (like paths). Many of my colleagues have already switched to the Figma board because it is possible there.
Things often get lost in the workflow, especially in teams. Working on the same file often leads to misunderstandings and can be frustrating. For example, if text is accidentally deleted and cannot be recovered, or if images become distorted.
The scale on the board is missing, which often leads to size differences.
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.
Miro saves my day. I would spend at least 4x more time on documenting my projects and work without this tool. It support my day to day role and helps me be successful while saving my capacity. It is not only very easy to start working on it without additional training required, but also adapts to any use case that I might need to implement
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.
There are some features that I think could be smoother or more dynamic in the free version; for instance, the connection of graphics/text boxes with lines can get a bit messy and a bit limited if you want to do something specific with the line, like a free-drawn element. But this is really minor!
I have not encountered events where Miro is not available. It is quite nice and reliable to be fair, even on my freemium version (startup) I don't have reliability issues. It does have sometimes where the screen refresh or "freezes" or "consumes a lot of data" and we have to rewind windows and the likes, this instances are very less
I took the loading quickly to be related to availability which I commented on before, so ditto with those comment on load time here. Although to reemphasize, Miro doesn't crash or just refuse to load like some other programs. The weak point of Miro for me is integration of files like Word, Excel, or PowerPoint (especially the later two). When you embed these, it gets slow, and complicated to bring them up while you're in the application.
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.
We have never reached out to or contacted support because Miro's platform has been incredibly intuitive and user-friendly. The comprehensive resources available, such as tutorials, documentation, and community forums, have provided all the guidance we needed. The seamless integration with our existing tools and the reliability of the platform have ensured that we rarely encounter issues that require external assistance. This self-sufficiency has allowed us to focus more on our projects and collaboration without interruptions. Overall, our experience with Miro has been smooth and efficient, eliminating the need for additional support
There was a series of webinars which Miro hosted with our organization that went over the basics, then progressively became more advanced with additional sections. The instructors were knowledgeable, and provided examples throughout the sessions, as well as answered peoples' questions. There was ample time and experience on the calls to cover a range of topics. The instructors were also very friendly and sociable, as well as honest. Of course Miro isn't a "God-tool" that does absolutely everything, but the instructors were aware and emphasized the strengths where Miro had them and sincerely accepted feedback.
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.
Easy to learn, Miro has a series of videos on YouTube that effectively taught this program to my team members and me. The program is drag-and-drop and works excellently. People pick up on how to use it efficiently, and it's great for organizing ideas more freely. This product is more challenging for some older audiences who are not accustomed to using a touchpad, but for most, it was very easy to use.
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.
Both FigJam and Canva have infinite whiteboarding, but Miro is a much more complete package. FigJam is very fast, but it's also very simplistic in its features. Canva has other qualities, like being more design-heavy, but its whiteboarding feature set is not on par with Miro's. Miro is the only platform that lets a user start a project from a messy brainstorm and bring it to full completion, along with all tasks and deliverables, all on one board.
Maybe is possible now so... Could be useful to manage in some way source code for the projects? not to edit so when we make solutions with different components in MIro, maybe each component could redirect to the source code of this component
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.
This is one of those platforms where the entire team needs to be bought into it, or it doesn't function as intended. Once we achieved that, it's been a wonderful tool for brainstorming and project management internally.
Surprisingly, Miro has not allowed us to reduce software; however, it's a worthwhile addition to our tech stack.
Our team has Miro boards bookmarked, and we know exactly where to go when we have ideas or things that we want to add. It's great to know that we will receive notifications when that happens.
