Yammer conversations are open by default and as such, allow you to have conversations that go across teams and workgroups – to support the fabric for knowledge sharing across the organization.
- Yammer and Teams are most often used for internal communications. Consequently, their user bases are more or less similar. Both Yammer and Teams have people with subscribers ranging from small and medium businesses to large enterprises.
- Instead, her Yammer conversation was seen by a larger audience that knows her idea is in the works—which allows everyone to follow the conversation for the latest updates. Now that you’re a pro: take the Yammer vs. Take a quick quiz to see how you’re doing! Would you use Yammer or Teams for these 6 scenarios?
- To use Yammer, please enable JavaScript.
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Microsoft today revealed its plans for Yammer, the company’s enterprise social network for private communication within organizations. It’s getting the Microsoft Teams treatment — users can now add a Yammer tab to their channels.
Microsoft Teams is used by over 329,000 organizations and is the company’s fastest-growing business app ever. Teams is only two years old — it launched worldwide in March 2017. Microsoft, meanwhile, acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion in June 2012.
Teams is Microsoft’s Office 365 chat-based collaboration tool that competes with Google’s Hangouts Chat, Facebook’s Workplace, and Slack. Microsoft has been slowly consolidating its various enterprise tools into Teams, such as Skype for Business and Skype Room Systems. But Yammer still stands on its own, meaning that Teams can’t completely replace its use cases. So Microsoft has decided to simply integrate the business social network into the communications tool.
Adding Yammer into your Teams channel
By adding a Yammer tab to a Microsoft Teams channel, users can see a group, follow a topic feed, or share conversations in Yammer without having to leave Teams. They can also discuss a Yammer conversation in Teams before posting a reply to the wider Yammer group.
To try out the new integration, follow these seven steps:
- In the Teams channel, select + on the tab bar.
- Select the Yammer tab.
- Select the Yammer group to show on the tab, and then click Install.
- Once you have installed the app, you must configure it. In the Content Type section, select one of the following:
- Yammer Group: all messages visible to the user in the selected group.
- Topic Feed: all messages visible to the user with the selected topic hashtag, for example #NewEmployee.
- In the Search box, type the group name or topic you want to include.
- To automatically have a Teams message sent that lets your team know that you’ve added the Yammer tab, make sure the Post to the channel about this tab checkbox is selected. Otherwise, clear it.
- Click Save. The new Yammer tab shows up in the tab bar for all team members.
The integration is more than just a simple view of the company’s Yammer page. When a Teams member goes to the Yammer tab, they are authenticated by Yammer so that they only see the content that they have access to. That said, Yammer tabs only work on desktop and the web — Microsoft will presumably add support for mobile devices in the future.
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Coke or Pepsi? Cat or Dog? Republican or Democrat? Life is full of choices. In this post, however, I would like to help you resolve one of the biggest choices you have to make in your Microsoft 365 environment. I am, of course, talking about the Teams vs. Yammer debate. Both, on the surface, happen to be doing the same thing, but in reality, are different and meant for different objectives and use cases. So with this post, I would like to share the comparison between the two and advise if and when you should them.
Yammer
I will start with Yammer, since it makes sense from a chronological standpoint. Yammer was acquired by Microsoft in 2012 and was meant to be a corporate social network. That said, it got little traction within most organizations as it was not really integrated well with other applications within Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) eco-system. The major appeal of Yammer was the fact that it integrated with SharePoint – you could easily embed a conversation for a Yammer group (called Community now) on a SharePoint page, making it a bit more social and fun.
Yammer Integration with SharePoint
Teams
Then, in 2017, Microsoft released Teams. It felt like a sexy lover appearing on the scene all of a sudden, after several years of a bad marriage. Teams application was well-received and embraced by most organizations due to its simplicity, ability to customize, and heavy integration with the rest of the applications within Microsoft 365 (SharePoint, Outlook, Forms, Power Automate, etc.).
Turn Off Yammer Notifications In Teams
The primary advantage of Teams over Yammer is its integration with other apps via a Microsoft 365 Group. And of course, the added ability to have Teams Calls (video calls, formerly Skype), all integrated together in one package.
Teams Versus Yammer
Use Cases for Teams and Yammer
Teams
- 2-way Project collaboration
- Temporary projects/endeavors
- Document Management
- Group Teams Calls
- Integration with Power Automate and other Microsoft 365 resources
Yammer
- Alternate communication tool with the employees (i.e., HR having informal Q&A channel or CEO hosting virtual “Townhall” with its employees)
- Forum-style conversations on specific topics
When to use Teams vs. Yammer?
Large organizations
If you are a large organization (by that, I mean thousands of users), you can definitely benefit from using Yammer as an alternate communication tool. Just like with the example above, Human Resources can have an informal Community to answer those burning questions about vacation policy and medical benefits. Or, a CEO can have its own community to hold virtual (Townhalls) with the employees. I also see some of my clients creating communities for specific topics to discuss (i.e., SharePoint Tips & Tricks).
Small Organizations
If you have under a hundred or a few hundred employees, Yammer might not be necessary. Why create another channel for communication when your users already live in Outlook and Teams? Most of my small clients do exactly that.
Yammer Alternative
Another thing that you can do if you desire for that company-wide reach of Yammer is to create an Org-Wide Team in Teams. The beauty of this type of Group is that it automatically includes everyone within the organization as people come and go.
The creation of such type of group in Teams requires you to be a Microsoft 365 Global Admin. While the creation of the group does create other assets, you don’t need to use them. Also, if you want to control the conversations for various channels, you can moderate them if need be. I documented all you need to know about an org-wide Team in this post.