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HCL Sametime

Score8 out of 10

21 Reviews and Ratings

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What is HCL Sametime?

HCL Sametime (formerly IBM Lotus Sametime, acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in 2018) is an enterprise-level unified communications and VoIP platform. It includes features such as instant messaging, web conferencing, voice and video integration, telephony capabilities, and presence information.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features HCL Sametime has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 21 ratings of HCL Sametime's features
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Top Performing Features

  • Hosted PBX

    Hosted telephony infrastructure obviated the need for local PBX hardware

    Category average: 7.8

  • Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

    IVR is a phone menu allowing callers to interact with the system through voice and keypad

    Category average: 7.4

  • User templates

    Create and apply batch configurations to multiple users at once

    Category average: 7.4

Areas for Improvement

  • Mobile app for Android

    Android app

    Category average: 8.1

  • Video screen sharing

    Users are able to share their screens with other meeting participants on video conference calls.

    Category average: 7.7

  • Instant messaging

    Users are able to communicate via chat, either one-on-one or in a group message, through an instant messaging or chat tool.

    Category average: 8.6

Reviews

What users are saying about HCL Sametime.
View all reviews

Sametime a low budget and a reliable client

Incentivized
Bhawnish ㅤkumarView profile
Implementation Engineer in Information Technology at BT in India (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • Instant meetings & persistent chat so you can do group chats in the office
  • Multiple screen-share, so users can share multiple screens in the same meeting windows
  • It is available on desktop, mobile and tablet PC so you can connect from anywhere
  • It has live streaming capabilities too, so a person can live stream and do a broadcast message
  • Inbound and outbound calls

Cons

  • Re-invite is needed if you get dropped from a group chat, there should be a feature of getting added automatically
  • File transfer option is not available, which can be seen in Jabber and Microsoft Teams
  • Can't send a message to a person if he/she is offline
  • USer interface of the webpage is not a clean one as it is for the other companies apps

Return on Investment

  • This is not good for a meeting with large number of users
  • Persistance chat inbuilt is a great feature to keep the teams under one sync
  • Pricing of the product is low and helps a lot in bringing down the investment
  • Cloud based feature enables you to setup zero hardware as software can be installed on your PC's and mobiles so no hardware cost

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Jabber and Microsoft Teams

Other Software Used

Cisco Jabber, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex Calling

Simple Yet Effective Platform

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

Pros

  • Easy to track chat history
  • Can share files and screenshots easily
  • Can create user availability alerts to alert when the user is available
  • Facilitate team communications across regions effectively without being very formal and therefore strengthens our team relationships

Cons

  • Not convenient for a large group meeting.
  • Very basic tool for internal communication only not available for third party communication
  • Very basic and limited mobile app features.
  • High speed connection is needed to connect to Sametime

Return on Investment

  • HCL Sametime is affordable thus it is cost-efficient for instant messaging compared to costs of phone calls, especially overseas calls.
  • As Sametime is integrated with Lotus Notes it is convenient to use both of these together without separately using them.
  • Still need to pay for other apps for effective video conferencing and webinar.

Other Software Used

monday.com, Google Drive, Slack

An Honest Review of IBM Sametime

Incentivized
Victor ToalView profile
Chief Solutions Architect in Information Technology at ToalSystems (1-10 employees employees)

Pros

  • Awareness and chat integration with different platforms.
  • Basic meetings and persistent chat rooms are not complicated to set up and support.
  • Runs on many different operating systems (Windows, various Linux distributions, etc.)

Cons

  • Audio/video setup can initially be tricky, requires checking and coordinating a lot of moving parts
  • The base install of chat/awareness is easy, but the more features you want the more complicated it gets and the more experience you need to planning ahead correctly

Return on Investment

  • Licensing for existing IBM customers can be advantageous as they might actually already have a free entitlement (even if they do not know that yet) - so it can be quite cost-efficient.
  • Small environments can be fit onto a single server and run quite well

Alternatives Considered

Skype for Business and Jive Hosted VoIP

Other Software Used

Skype, Skype for Business

"Makes Working With Global Team Easier, With Fast Communication Features."

Incentivized
Verified User
Analyst in Corporate (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • Sharing files and screenshots is very easy with the screenshot feature.
  • Simple to use and with good chat history.

Cons

  • To perform better, it requires lots of configurations that are not default.
  • The app feature could be improved.

Return on Investment

  • Fast communication between teams helped with team integration.
  • Time-saver to resolve issues and problems with overseas teams.

Alternatives Considered

Google Hangouts and Microsoft Teams

Other Software Used

Cisco Webex Calling, Google Drive, StarLeaf

Sametime review

Incentivized
Verified User
Technician in Information Technology (10,001+ employees employees)

Pros

  • The license cost is comparatively low so almost all staff have it installed in our company. We can use it to contact all internal staff.
  • It’s light and fast with almost no downtime. It also provides easy to use APIs for the user to build automation process on it. We have an internally built robot running on Sametime to answer frequently asked questions and do some repetitive tasks.
  • Chat history can be saved as per user’s preference and it is easy to be searched.

Cons

  • Whenever I drop Sametime and relogin, I have to ask somebody else to invite me to chat rooms. It would be great to have a function to show me which chat room(s) I was previously on and give me an option to rejoin by Sametime itself.
  • Not always able to see chat history in chat room. If the invitor forget to check allow to see chat history, or the history the invitor cannot be seen, I will not be able to see.
  • Can not send files via Sametime.

Return on Investment

  • Easy for day to day communication with internal staff.
  • Has API provided for the user to build automation processes. We have an internal robot running on Sametime to do repetitive tasks.

Alternatives Considered

Jabber

Other Software Used

Jabber, Symphony Talent