Using Yammer as your social network

 Apr 13, 2015

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A little over a year ago, Microsoft announced you could make Yammer the primary enterprise social experience in Office 365 for everyone in your organisation. This was part of a road map that was announced earlier in 2013 and it’s a first step in integrating services.

SharePoint Newsfeed is the primary social experience in Office 365, but now organisations have a choice. You can switch your Enterprise Social Collaboration setting to Yammer, and make Yammer your primary experience. The recommendation is to use Yammer, since it’s Microsoft's big bet for enterprise social, and they are committed to making it the underlying social layer for all their products.

You can take advantage of this feature by going to the SharePoint Admin Center and selecting Use Yammer.com service. After making this change, Yammer will replace Newsfeed in the navigation. You can still access the SharePoint Newsfeed through sites, and your users will continue to be able to follow sites, documents and tags.

For more step-by-step guidance, take a look at this article. Administrators and IT Professionals also might be interested in learning more about Yammer’s administration capabilities.

However, there are some considerations to take into account when you decide to switch your Office 365 social experience to Yammer:

  • Activating Yammer for your organisation is just the first step. Enterprise social is different than other solutions. To drive adoption and really get the value out of Yammer, you need a strategy, advocates, and openness to the way it will transform the way people in your organisation work and communicate.
  • You can change back to using the SharePoint Newsfeed. Switching services will replace Yammer and change the Office 365 global navigation. This update might take up to 30 minutes to complete.

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About the Author:

Steve Wiggins  

Steve is a highly experienced technical trainer with over 10 years of specialisation in Software Application Development, Project Management, VBA Solutions and Desktop Applications training. His practical experience in .NET programming, advanced solution development and project management enables him to train clients at all levels of seniority and experience. Steve also currently manages the IT infrastructure for New Horizons of Brisbane, providing him with daily hands-on experience with SCCM, Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8.

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