Getting started with YammerGetting started with YammerGetting started with YammerGetting started with Yammer –––– an End User Guidean End User Guidean End User Guidean End User Guide

Blog Post Date: April 1, 2013 Category: Social Media Author: Ulrika Hedlund Source: http://www.businessproductivity.com/ getting-started-with-yammer

The past few weeks I’ve been writing about enterprise social networks; the benefits and the

solutions provided by Microsoft. Before you get going with any enterprise social network I

recommend you define your goals and objectives, that you evaluate different platforms and

that you clearly communicate usage guidelines and policies. Last week I shared with you

how to get started with social networking in SharePoint 2013/Office 365. On March 19th,

the SharePoint team published a blog post by Jared Spataro, Senior Director of the

Microsoft Office Division, where he shared more about the Yammer/SharePoint integration

moving forward. If asked by customers what to use for social – Yammer or SharePoint, he

said his answer was clear, “Go Yammer!” So in this blog post I thought I would share with

you how to get started with Yammer.

1.1.1.1. Sign up Sign up Sign up Sign up Yammer is a free service that any employee within a company can sign up for. You just go

to www.yammer.com and sign up by entering your corporate email address. You will be

sent an email back to confirm the address. The entire sign up process just takes a few

minutes.

2.2.2.2. Set up your profileSet up your profileSet up your profileSet up your profile When you have confirmed your email you are taken through a setup guide where you are

asked to fill out your name and department, add a profile picture and enter the email

address of colleagues you work with.

These people will be sent an email with an

invitation to join Yammer. Make sure to

inform your colleagues about Yammer

before you enter their email addresses

since they might otherwise not know what

the email invitation is all about. Yammer

will continue to send out email invitations

to encourage people to join. You can learn

more about the emails Yammer sends out

here.

If Yammer is already being used by other people in your company they might have started

“Groups” that you might want to join. A Group is an area within your corporate social

network, with people who share common interests. An example of a group can be a

department, a project team, or a group sharing certain expertise. By default you will be

added to the “All Company” Group which includes all employees from your organization

who have joined Yammer. You can also choose to create a Group if you want to start

socializing with people on a certain topic. (If you are new to Yammer and you don’t have

that many users I recommend that you wait a bit before you start too many different

Groups. A key success factor to any social network is consistent activity so if you have too

many Groups, some of them might not be very active).

3.3.3.3. Download the desktopDownload the desktopDownload the desktopDownload the desktop and mobileand mobileand mobileand mobile appappappapp To access your new company social network on Yammer

you need to login to www.Yammer.com, once you have an

account setup you will be taken directly to your company

network. Another, easier way to stay connected to your

Yammer network is to download the Yammer desktop and

mobile apps. This way you can engage with you enterprise

network without having to open up the network page in a

browser. Now you can post statuses, send (instant)

messages to people who are online, share files and easily

check the latest posts directly from your desktop or your

mobile. The Yammer desktop app is available for both

Windows PCs and Macs and the mobile app is available for

a wide range of mobiles including iPhones, Blackberrys,

Android devices and Windows mobile devices.

4.4.4.4. Start sharingStart sharingStart sharingStart sharing with colleagueswith colleagueswith colleagueswith colleagues It’s really easy to start using Yammer. In addition to traditional micro-blogging capabilities

such as tagging content, posting images and mentioning people, Yammer provides more

advanced social capabilities like uploading documents and videos, posting polls, praising

people and posting events where you can track who is attending. Compared to the

collaboration capabilities you have in a SharePoint team site Yammer is very limited, but

the ease of use makes sharing appealing. When you start using Yammer your inbox will be

bombarded with email notifications so I recommend that you change the notification

settings in your account. I prefer to get a summarized weekly digest of all the activities that I

can just skim through to make sure I haven’t missed anything.

5.5.5.5. Start sharing with external business partnersStart sharing with external business partnersStart sharing with external business partnersStart sharing with external business partners One of the key benefits of Yammer is that it’s really easy to start collaborating with people

outside your organization, you might be working with an external PC agency that you need

to share information with, or perhaps you are working with a business partner on a project.

In Yammer you can create a number of different “external networks”. Each network is a

separate “area” where you can socialize and share files/news and updates with members.

When you create a new external network you need to select a unique name for the network

(this will be separate from your organizations network).

When the name has been approved you can then decide whether the network should be

“Open” or “Closed”. If the network is open any member can invite new members to join, if it is

closed only administrators have that ability. Yammer color codes external networks red to

clearly show that the network is accessible by people outside the organization. You can

switch between the different networks by just selecting the network in the drop down in the

Yammer desktop app.

6.6.6.6. Evaluate the Evaluate the Evaluate the Evaluate the Yammer appsYammer appsYammer appsYammer apps In addition to the applications

developed by Yammer, there is a full

partner marketplace with apps that

plug into Yammer. Here you can find

applications for mind-mapping

(MindJet), online training

(MindFlash), customer relationship

management (Salesforce.com) and

much more. Some of these you might

already be using in your organization

and the integration with Yammer is

an added value. Others might be

totally new, but they might be able to

fill a need that you have internally.

Looking forward to better integrationLooking forward to better integrationLooking forward to better integrationLooking forward to better integration Microsoft’s productivity story has always been “better together,” but with recent

acquisitions of Yammer and Skype there are multiple applications in Microsoft’s productivity

portfolio that overlap, compete and don’t work very well together. With that said, acquiring

software and integrating it into the product family isn’t something new to Microsoft, they

have been doing this from the very start. How many people today are aware that

PowerPoint wasn’t originally developed by Microsoft? I’ve been a heavy user of SharePoint

for many years, and from a collaboration perspective SharePoint is so much richer than

Yammer, but from a social perspective Yammer is a clear winner. It’s easier to get started, it’s

richer in functionality and more intuitive. Since social and collaboration go hand in hand it’s

crucial that Microsoft quickly integrates these two platforms – and not just on the surface

with web parts and Single Sign-On, but from the ground up. When they do, Microsoft will

have a fantastic solution for social collaboration.