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Using Connections 7.0
Welcome to the HCL Connections™ documentation site, where you can find information about Connections. Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
Communities
Get together with people who share your interests.
Owners - manage your community effectively
Give your community and its members the tools they need to collaborate.
Keeping your apps contemporary
Take advantage of all the ways you can use apps to engage your community.
Customizing the Highlights page
As a community owner, you can customize Highlights, the default start page for a new community, to create a portal-like experience where you can aggregate content from a variety of sources, as well as display standard community apps.

Using Connections 7.0
Welcome to the HCL Connections™ documentation site, where you can find information about Connections. Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
- Accessibility features for Connections
  Accessibility features assist users who have a disability, such as restricted mobility or limited vision, to use information technology content successfully.
- What's new in Connections?
  HCL Connections 7.0 gives collaboration a boost with these new features and enhancements.
- Overview
  HCL Connections™ is a collaborative tool that makes it easy to connect with others and exchange ideas. Start sharing important information, building a network of useful contacts, and following people that interest you.
- Home page
  Use the home page as a command center to scan and manage items that need your attention. You can view your most recent project updates, check in on the people you follow, and review your action items all from one place.
- Profiles
  Use profiles to connect with others, showcase your skills, and find the people you need.
- Activities
  Use activities to keep a team informed, collect and share project resources, or to assign and track tasks.
- Files
  Using the Files app, you can upload, organize, share and collaborate on files easily. Files can be shared, tagged, organized in folders, and accessed from other applications, such as Activities and Communities.
- Communities
  Get together with people who share your interests.
  - Getting started
    Find out about communities. Then, search for the communities you're interested in and join them. If you've a mind to, start your own community.
  - Members - use your community effectively
    Use community apps, such as Wikis and Blogs to share information, collaborate with others, and bring your expertise to the community.
  - Owners - manage your community effectively
    Give your community and its members the tools they need to collaborate.
    - Adding members to grow your community
      Add members to make your community flourish. You can also invite people to join the community. If the community is moderated, you can decide whether to accept or reject incoming membership requests. To add multiple members, use the import tool on the Members page.
    - Managing your community to keep it relevant
      Edit your community to update basic information about the community or the apps associated with it. If the community is no longer needed or was created in error, you can delete it.
    - Keeping your apps contemporary
      Take advantage of all the ways you can use apps to engage your community.
      - Adding apps to increase capabilities
        Add apps to your Community so that members can benefit from them.
      - Community apps
      - Adding forums to get the discussion going
        You can add more forums to your community to organize discussions around different focus areas. You cannot add existing, stand-alone forums to a community.
      - Adding the SharePoint app to a community
        In organizations where the HCL Connections for Microsoft Sharepoint app was enabled, a community owners can add the app to their community so that members can access SharePoint files from there.
      - Organizing content in community files
        Mange your community's files using the Files app.
      - Highlighting content in galleries
        The Gallery app highlights the contents of a Files or Community folder on the Community Overview page. The app displays thumbnails or file type icons for the files in the folder. You can also use the Gallery app to display and work with thumbnails in a Library folder in the Community Overview page.
      - Keeping your community activities up-to-date
        After you add the Activities app to your community, you can edit activity details.
      - Sharing information in a community blog
        Use the blog app to share information with community members in an efficient, dynamic way.
      - Getting ideas flowing with an ideation blog
      - Measuring business value with metrics
        Metrics provide quantitative and qualitative metrics in the form of reports to help you measure the business value of HCL Connections™ in your organization.
      - Managing documents in libraries
        The library management tasks that you can perform depend on whether you are working with a community library or a linked library.
      - Customizing a pre-v7 community
        For communities created prior to Connections 7 and/or still using the Overview page as their start page, here are some ways for a community owner to customize their community for visual appeal.
      - Customizing the Highlights page
        As a community owner, you can customize Highlights, the default start page for a new community, to create a portal-like experience where you can aggregate content from a variety of sources, as well as display standard community apps.
        Adding apps and widgets to the Highlights page
        Community owners can design a Highlights page that includes standard Connections apps as well as widgets that aggregate content for community members.
        Configuring a Highlights widget
        Community owners can configure the widgets on the Highlights page to include content from multiple sources.
- Blogs
  Use blogs to share your announcements, updates, and opinions with others.
- Forums
  Share information, brainstorm ideas, ask and answer questions, and discuss topics of mutual interest in a forum.
- Wikis
  Tap the wisdom of the crowd by building a body of knowledge in a wiki. Everyone on your team can make a contribution.
- Bookmarks
  Use Bookmarks to collect and organize shortcuts to websites.

Customizing the Highlights page

As a community owner, you can customize Highlights, the default start page for a new community, to create a portal-like experience where you can aggregate content from a variety of sources, as well as display standard community apps.

For example, you might include a news feed that brings in posts from a couple of key blogs that everyone in your community can see. You can make a community a one-stop experience for your user, where, on one page, they can find everything they need to collaborate with a team. At the same time, you can include any standard apps from your community.

If you manage an existing community and want to try out the Highlights page, add the page by clicking Edit Community and then Add Apps, and then select Highlights from the list.

Attention: To customize the Highlights page you should be comfortable configuring widgets. For an example of how you do it, click the link "Configuring a Highlights widget" at the end of this page. If you prefer to set the start page for your community as the standard Overview page, click Edit Community, click the Community Profile tab, and switch the entry in the Start Page field to Overview.