Last November at Microsoft Ignite, the collaboration giant revealed the new Yammer. Today, the redesigned app is available in the Microsoft app store. The all-new Yammer features ‘Communities’, an app available for all Microsoft Teams users which keeps users connected.
The app lets users share announcements, attend live events, along with connecting with coworkers as they would via Yammer’s web and mobile versions. Murali Sitaram, General Manager, Yammer and Office 365 Groups, told UC Today it does a lot more, adding:
“With the Yammer app in Teams, users can share polls and questions at scale. They can even notify others of important news by sharing announcements targeted at an entire organization or specific communities”
Sitaram further shared with UC Today, the app then offers visibility into the reach and impression of the communications. And such capabilities can prove key, namely, during a time where the workforce has more remote workers than anyone could have ever predicted. The app’s personalized feed harnesses the potential of artificial intelligence, presenting only the most relevant conversations and content.
Announcements and pinned posts increase the visibility of relevant messages, according to Sitaram. And connecting with experts to find answers to questions, discover valuable conversations, ask questions, loop in experts with at-mentions, and mark best answers, are too possible with the new ‘Yammer Communities’ for Teams users.
You can host company-wide events with the use of Yammer’s live events feature. With the feature, users can broadcast town hall-style meetings with video, interactive conversations, along with question and answer sessions – features all designed to drive engagement and nurture accurate information sharing.
The app will not make its debut for Teams iOS and Android users just yet, but it is available for Teams desktop and web clients. “We’ll be bringing it to mobile soon,” Sitaram added. The new experience is a part of Microsoft’s aim to make it more accessible for leaders to interact with teams and organizations, something quite useful as we continue to see the number of those working from their home rise.
According to a statement from Microsoft, developers will “Continue creating a more seamless ‘Yammer Communities’ experience within Teams, including unifying notifications and search, as well as bringing the Yammer app to Teams mobile.” Teams and Yammer both strive to deliver similar outcomes, but offer different approaches to workplace communications. Both apps let companies align group comms, with the major differentiator being, how the two get there.
Yammer offers enterprises the advantage of keeping everyone in the loop, no matter who they are. This includes contact center employees along with executives. Microsoft Teams aligns individual employees with small groups. It is not built to scale, nor does it provide all the insights Yammer offers. So, the latest release from Microsoft could be a winner for enterprises across the globe looking to unify communications at scale.
In other news, the United States Department of Defence rolled out Microsoft Teams for four million military and civilian workers, bringing the total number of Microsoft Teams users up to at least 48 million with a likely rise following a post-COVID-19 reassessment of those numbers.
