The annual conference of DNUG took place in Constance from 22nd to 23rd of June 2022.
I attended the HCL Connections Roadmap session given by Rene Schimmer and David Strachan. They showed the updates for version 8 and beyond.
Talking about version 8. HCL Connections will get named after evergreen trees from version 8.New naming scheme for Connections - ©HCL Software
So next HCL Connections release is Cedar. For this version a public preview is available, when you are not already registered, have a look at following urls.

Connections 8 Preview - ©HCL Software
There were several sessions on HCL Connections, but one I will long remember:
Sandra Buehler and Olaf Braun did a very entertaining session and talked about their project to bring Connections within KOSMOS to a new level. The project should ensure that a selected number of communities meet current user requirements, both in terms of content and layout.
I did a session on open-source tools I use on a regular basis. They can help to administrate, document or troubleshoot a Connections environment, but can also be used for most web applications.
Session slides HCL Connections Admin Toolbox and as a list , if you only want to see the tools.