Is Yammer Worth It Now We Have Microsoft Teams?

First of all, Yammer has been rebranded to Viva Engage but for the purpose of this blog we will refer to it as the old name Yammer.

Microsoft Teams and Yammer are two of the most popular collaboration tools in the Office 365 suite. They both enable users to communicate and share information with their colleagues, but they have different purposes and strengths. In this blog post, we will compare and contrast Yammer and Teams, and help you decide which one to use and when.

What is Yammer?

Yammer is a social networking tool that Microsoft acquired back in 2012 which connects and engages people across an organisation. It allows users to create groups and communities based on topics, interests, projects, or departments, and participate in discussions with anyone in the company. Yammer is ideal for “outer loop” communication, which means reaching out to a broad audience that may not know each other personally but share a common goal or interest. Yammer helps to foster a culture of openness, feedback, and innovation, by enabling employees to share ideas, news, best practices, and insights with their peers.

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a unified platform for workplace chat, online meetings, file sharing, and app integration. It allows users to create teams and channels based on projects, tasks, or functions, and collaborate in real-time with their co-workers. Microsoft Teams is ideal for “inner loop” communication, which means working closely with a specific group of people who know each other well and need to get things done quickly. Microsoft Teams helps to boost productivity, efficiency, and security, by enabling users to access all the tools and resources they need within one app.

Yammer vs Teams: Which One to Use and When?

Both Yammer and Teams have their own advantages and use cases. Here are some scenarios where you might want to use one over the other:

• If you want to ask a question, share an idea, or make an announcement to the entire company or a large group of people who may not be in your team or department, use Yammer. You can post your message on Yammer and get feedback from anyone in the organisation who can see it and reply. You can also use tags to categorise your posts and make them easier to find and follow.

• If you want to chat, call, or meet with your team members or a small group of people who are working on the same project or task as you, use Teams. You can create a team and a channel for your project and communicate with your co-workers in real-time. You can also share files, edit documents, access apps, and schedule meetings within Teams.

• If you want to collaborate with both your team members and other people outside your team who have relevant expertise or interest in your project or topic, use both Yammer and Teams. You can integrate Yammer into Teams by adding a Yammer tab to your team channel. This way, you can access Yammer conversations without leaving Teams, and vice versa. You can also cross-post messages from Yammer to Teams or from Teams to Yammer to reach a wider audience.

Conclusion

Yammer and Teams are both powerful collaboration tools that can help you communicate and work better with your colleagues. They are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary. Depending on your needs and goals, you can use either one or both of them to achieve optimal results.

So, to answer the question, Is Yammer Worth It Now We Have Microsoft Teams? Yes, Yammer helps foster culture, transparency, employee engagement and satisfaction.

Yammer (Viva Engage) isn’t going anywhere Microsoft are still heavily invested in this product by introducing integration with Viva Topics bringing workplace knowledge to employees. This is driving community-sourced knowledge easily accessible across an organisation.

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