Yammer, an integral part of the Microsoft 365 suite, provides a unique and intuitive platform for integrating communities, organizations, and individuals. It offers a multifaceted approach towards building an interconnected ecosystem that nurtures effective communication, collaboration, and engagement. With Yammer, connecting and growing communities in a structured, secure, and efficient manner becomes a seamless task.
Yammer as Social Networking Site for Businesses
Functioning like a social networking site for businesses and organizations, Yammer allows employees and other organization members to connect, communicate and collaborate, fostering a strong virtual community. Members can join groups, view posts, contribute to conversations, share files, or send private messages. Every individual has a unique personalized experience since the content they see is customized to their groups, contacts, and interactions.
Leveraging Yammer for Successful Team Collaboration
Yammer breaks down the communication silos within an organization, thereby facilitating open dialogue, problem-solving, and team work. It enables easy sharing of important updates, news, and insights, fostering a sense of community and belonging. Team members can post questions or topics for discussion, and anyone can contribute their thoughts or solutions. This leads to an increase in engagement and innovation.
Yammer’s live events feature allows for meetings, product launches, or webinars, which can foster engagement and transparency. The conversations that occur during these live events are saved, allowing members who couldn’t attend the event to participate in their own time.
Interconnecting Multiple Communities
One of the unique features of Yammer is its ability to interconnect different communities. In addition to internal organizational communication, Yammer connects organizations with external partners, stakeholders, customers, and clients. This inter-organizational collaboration fosters the exchange of ideas and insights, paving the way for business growth and innovation.
Yammer and Knowledge Management
Yammer simplifies the management of organizational knowledge. It prevents the duplication of work and enables better utilization of resources by making it easy to locate, share and engage with content. Users can search discussions, files, and updates to quickly find the information they need. If the answer to a query is not available, users can simply post a question and leverage the combined knowledge of the community.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, Yammer helps in growing and connecting communities by providing an interactive platform that promotes open dialogue, inclusion, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. Its multifaceted feature set assists in networking, managing knowledge, and integrating communities, which can tremendously benefit businesses and organizations in today’s digital era.
In preparing for MS-900: Microsoft 365 Fundamentals exam, getting a solid grasp of Yammer’s features, functionalities, and usage can be highly beneficial. Just like how Yammer supports interconnection and growth within communities, understanding and applying the platform’s capabilities can help enhance your proficiency in Microsoft 365.
Practice Test
True or False: Yammer is recognized as a social networking tool used to facilitate communication within a group or community.
Answer: True
Explanation: Yammer is a collaboration tool that aids in community building by facilitating communication, sharing knowledge, and promoting group activities.
What is the primary advantage of Yammer for communities?
Answer: c) Facilitates collaboration and communication
Explanation: The prime benefit of Yammer is to facilitate collaboration and communication within a group or community, enhancing the connections and growth.
Multiple select question: Which of the following features does Yammer offer for community growth? (Choose multiple)
Answer: a) Group discussions, b) Private messaging, d) Interactive news feed
Explanation: While Yammer does facilitate group discussions, private messaging, and an interactive news feed, it is not primarily used for online data storage.
True or False: Yammer supports file sharing and content collaboration only within a small team.
Answer: False
Explanation: Yammer provides support for file sharing and content collaboration across large organizations, not just small teams.
What helps boost engagement within communities in Yammer?
Answer: d) All the above
Explanation: Graphics and GIFs, praise features, and polls and surveys are all tools provide by Yammer to promote engagement and enhance collaboration within communities.
Multiple select question: Yammer integrates with which of the following? (Choose multiple)
Answer: d) All the above
Explanation: Yammer integrates with Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and PowerPoint, allowing for seamless collaboration within a business organization.
True or False: Yammer is only useful for business organizations.
Answer: False
Explanation: While Yammer is primarily used within business organizations, it can also be used in any community or group looking for effective collaboration and communication tools.
True or False: Yammer functions only on desktop and not on mobile devices.
Answer: False
Explanation: Yammer functions on both desktop and mobile devices, making it accessible anytime, anywhere.
In Yammer, you can create multiple communities for different teams or departments within your organization.
Answer: a) True
Explanation: In Yammer, you can create multiple communities depending on the teams, departments, or needs within your organization.
Who can control access to a Yammer community?
Answer: c) The community admin
Explanation: The community admin can control access to a Yammer community, ensuring proper management and security.
Interview Questions
What is Yammer and how does it contribute to community growth?
Yammer is a social networking tool to openly connect and engage across your organization. Using Yammer, people can join in community discussions, share ideas, and harness the collective knowledge of your entire organization.
How does Yammer facilitate communication in an organization?
Yammer provides a platform for open conversation and collaboration. It delivers an easy-to-use interface that looks and functions similarly to other social media platforms, making user adoption straightforward and simple.
Is it possible to create different communities within Yammer, and if so, how?
Yes, Yammer allows for the creation of different teams and communities, focusing on specific topics or projects. This could be based on different departments, project groups, or any other division within an organization.
Can Yammer be integrated with other Microsoft 365 applications?
Yes, Yammer can be integrated with other apps and services from Microsoft 365, such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Outlook. This allows for a seamless workflow and collaboration across different platforms.
How does Yammer contribute to organizational learning?
Yammer promotes knowledge sharing and collective problem-solving by enabling open-ended discussions among team members. It helps to ensure that organizational learning is recorded and accessible for future reference.
What security and compliance measures does Yammer offer?
Yammer offers a range of security and compliance tools, including data loss prevention, eDiscovery, and retention policies. This helps to ensure that communication and collaboration within Yammer meet an organization’s regulatory requirements.
Can Yammer aid in the process of decision making in an organization?
Yes, by fostering open discussion and idea sharing, Yammer can help the decision-making process become more democratic and informed. Yammer can also assist in gathering feedback and gauging employee sentiment, providing valuable insights for decision-makers.
Does Yammer offer mobile access?
Yes, Yammer offers a mobile app for both iOS and Android, ensuring its users can stay connected with their communities and conversations from anywhere, at any time.
How does Yammer support file sharing and collaboration?
Yammer allows sharing of files and documents within conversations. Moreover, it integrates with Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint, allowing users to view and co-author these documents directly within Yammer.
Can external stakeholders participate in a Yammer community?
Yes, Yammer provides the feature to create external networks, allowing you to invite customers, partners, or other important external stakeholders to join specific conversations and communities.
How does Yammer facilitate innovation and ideation within communities?
Yammer provides a platform for open discussions, encouraging employees to voice their ideas without fear of criticism. It also promotes cross-departmental collaborations, fostering a culture of innovation within the community.
Can we use Yammer to broadcast company-wide announcements?
Yes, Yammer allows company-wide communication, making it an excellent tool for important announcements and updates. It also enables dialogue around these announcements, helping to keep communication lines open.
Does Yammer support personalized feeds?
Yes, Yammer uses artificial intelligence to create a personalized feed for each user, delivering content and discussions that are relevant and interesting based on their interactions and associations.
How can Yammer help in identifying subject matter experts within a community?
As users share knowledge, participate in discussions, and answer queries on Yammer, they build a reputation for expertise in certain areas. This activity is visible to all users, helping to identify subject matter experts within a community.
Does Yammer support any form of recognition for community contributions?
Yes, Yammer supports recognition through the use of ‘Praise’ – a feature that allows users to publicly recognize others for their contributions, fostering a culture of appreciation within the community.