Jive Strengthens Its External Community Platform with Next Cloud Release

Jive Software today introduced the latest version of its JiveX external community platform.

With the JiveX Summer cloud update, customers gain new capabilities in driving engagement, improving community analytics, and connecting to existing systems. These features build on the introduction of JiveX Cloud earlier this year, which has already achieved strong adoption from companies turning to Jive to power their external communities.

"An online community can make or break a company's reputation and significantly impact its top line. And as we are seeing more often, customers and partners are now participating in their communities from a variety of Web browsers, where experiences can vary," said Colleen Jansen, vice president of product marketing at Jive Software, in a statement. "Our latest version of JiveX provides a compelling external community experience regardless of the user's device, so that our clients can more effectively attract and retain their important customers and partners, whether they're accessing the community from their desktop or mobile device."

Significant advancements in the JiveX Summer cloud release include the following:

• Smarter mobile experience: A new responsive design capability ensures that as the size of a user's Web browser changes, so does the layout of the site. Customers and partners visiting a company's online community will see the same great interface from any device while seeing the content and functionality that matters most.
• Greater connectivity with CRM: The enhanced JiveX CRM Connector, which tightly connects communities with CRM systems, now comes with out-of-the-box templates for companies to offer private support portals allowing customers to create their own support cases. In addition, JiveX extends bidirectional connections with CRM systems to help streamline customer care response time, including the ability to search content stored in the community directly from within a CRM system and sync knowledge articles about specific customers.
• More robust analytics: JiveX now features enhanced Sentiment and Influencer Reports for community managers to gain instant visibility of key influencers within their communities. With more granular access to influencer sentiment, a company can quickly detect and analyze important themes related to products, launches, ideas, and issues to respond to or leverage influencers in marketing and support efforts.

Since its launch earlier this year, the JiveX cloud version has experienced strong uptake. In six months, JiveX has gained significant adoption with new and existing customers, such as Akamai, Birst, GNS3, Humana, ServiceMax, and SideCar.

Also announced today, Jive unveiled the summer cloud release of its enterprise communication and collaboration platform. The Jive Summer cloud update delivers a more customized, enhanced enterprise collaboration experience across all mobile devices and extends the company's global reseller agreement with Cisco by delivering on the promise of native integration with Cisco's real-time communication offerings, including WebEx and Jabber.

With the Jive Summer cloud release, new personalization features and streamlined updates enhance overall productivity by keeping employees more active, informed and engaged. These include the following:

• First native integration with Cisco through two new connectors, Jive Connector for WebEx and Jive Connector for Jabber, that enable customers to launch WebEx meetings directly from a colleague's Jive profile or with a group of individuals in any shared document. In addition, colleagues can initiate a chat session or phone call from any Jive page via compatible Jabber clients.
• More personalized content experience: A brand new "Your View" feature lets employees personalize their home screens in Jive. With this update, people can now create their own streamlined social intranets using various options for grouping, categorizing, and sharing information.
• Enhanced sales enablement on-the-go with Jive Present, a mobile app that allows sales reps to always be equipped with the latest information, assets, and sales tools, whether online or offline, is now available on iPhone devices, in addition to Android tablets and iPads. People can add content, such as sales presentations or corporate brochures, directly from their Jive communities into their Jive Present apps. In addition, Jive Present now integrates with Salesforce.com and calendars to merge meeting invites, notes, and contact details directly from the app.

"Jive's Summer cloud release empowers companies to put their employees' workstyles front and center – providing a more customized and personalized communication and collaboration experience," Jansen said. "From our integration with Cisco WebEx and Jabber to our seamless mobile experiences, the latest innovations in the Summer cloud release offer companies and employees more ways to work better together, deliver meaningful results and realize even greater productivity."

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