SHAREPOINT & MICROSOFT RESOURCE GUIDE

USING YAMMER AND

VIVA ENGAGE TO
BUILD COMMUNITIES
IN YOUR BUSINESS
1 SHAREPOINT & MICROSOFT RESOURCE GUIDE

Longstanding mainstay of Microsoft 365 – and included as standard for all enterprise
users – Yammer is overlooked and underused by many businesses.

But this well-established tool has been a leader in employee engagement for almost ten years and has
a significant role to play in enabling the modern workplace, providing agility in communication, and
significantly improving connections across your business. Now, with the release of Viva Engage, Yammer
has even more potential – to bring employees and leaders together, to help people find and use their voice,
and to create communities that engage across locations, time zones and even languages.

This quick start guide looks at how you can use Yammer and Viva Engage to encourage open conversation
across your business, to engage teams, and inspire individuals.
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WHAT IS
MICROSOFT YAMMER?

Yammer is an enterprise communication and engagement tool with a social

networking service at its heart.

It was initially created as a standalone tool to help employees to connect and communicate across their
organisation but has since expanded within the Microsoft 365 space to integrate across tools –
particularly with Teams – to sit within the flow of work and create a fluid, open network of ideas
exchange, corporate news, work discussion, and social chat. Frequently referred to as the Facebook
of the corporate world, Yammer is easy to set up, low impact to run (particularly once engagement with
the tool is high), available across devices, and integrated with Microsoft Teams.

Key features of Yammer

Yammer is, at its core, a private corporate social network allowing you –
and your employees – to conceive of and nurture communities of interest.
Through these communities – whether focused on work or personal
interests – businesses can keep information flowing across the
organisation, give employees an opportunity to connect and build
personal and professional relationships, and maintain a view of sentiment
and cultural trends.

You can easily create and manage events within Yammer – such as town
halls, company meetings, and training sessions, sharing rich media and
content to engage up to 20,000 attendees at any one time.

Yammer also provides valuable data analysis. From security, access, and
usage tracking to gaining essential insight into the way people in your
organisation are using the network, the analytics suite allows you to make
the most of all your Yammer features.
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WHAT IS
VIVA ENGAGE?

Microsoft Viva Engage is one of the latest member of the Viva suite of tools – designed
to supercharge your Microsoft 365 experience.

With specific focus on communication, learning and employee wellbeing, Viva Engage delivers an
enhanced experience of the Yammer Communities app for Microsoft Teams. Viva Engage creates a social
layer across Microsoft 365 and provides new capabilities to connect people within your business, including
surfacing relevant announcements, posts, and stories - from a new storylines feature - and building
better, more productive communities. This content will show up across your working experience in
Microsoft 365, in Teams Activity, your Outlook inbox, Viva Connections, profile card, and – obviously –
through Viva Engage and Yammer.

Key features of Viva Engage

Personalised Home is a feed of conversations and activity based on your

personal behaviours within the app. This learns over time to improve the feed,
increase the relevance, and drive engagement.

A new Communities hub gives you a central place to find your communities
and see recommended communities based on activities and engagements.
Quicker navigation gives you more immediate access to your favourite
communities across the app.
4 SHAREPOINT & MICROSOFT RESOURCE GUIDE

Key features of Viva Engage

Storyline and stories enable a richer level of engagement across your

network. You can view updates from people you follow as well as posts
from peers and popular posters in your network. Celebrate successes
and share interesting experiences and discoveries – using images,
video, sound, and discussion – and, like Instagram and Facebook
Stories, these engaging posts will also entice new people into your
network and, equally, you can explore your own curated feed to discover
new connections to follow and interact with.

It is safe, secure, and governable. As an integrated Teams and Outlook

experience, Viva Engage is backed by the same Yammer services and
enterprise-grade Microsoft 365 security, privacy, compliance, and
manageability controls, including eDiscovery and communications
compliance.

Say it with me: “Yammer is not going away. In fact, we’re investing more
deeply in Yammer services and experiences in Viva Engage and across
Microsoft 365.”
Dan Holme - Product leader at Microsoft - Viva Engage, storyline & stories
5 SHAREPOINT & MICROSOFT RESOURCE GUIDE

HOW DO YAMMER AND VIVA

ENGAGE WORK TOGETHER?

Yammer’s power lies in its capability to support and build communities, to

facilitate conversations, open cross-company relationships, and provide
a platform for personal expression.

These tools are critical for any organisational culture to thrive. The Yammer web
experience – as well as the native Yammer mobile apps - continue to be a part of
Microsoft 365, can run as-is without Viva Engage. The relationship between the two is
symbiotic. The same communities, storylines, and stories will be available through both
Yammer and the Viva Engage app; the network, home feed and the content you
create in either Engage or Yammer will be available through both apps.

The Communities app for Teams has been rebranded as Viva Engage, and
automatically deployed into the Teams desktop, web, and mobile apps meaning – for
current Communities users – no changes will be needed. Current Yammer customers
can simply deploy and pin Viva Engage on the left rail of Teams through the Teams
Admin Center – there is no additional cost for current Yammer users.
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48% 46% 43%

Feel disconnected working Found it hard to Think relationship building
outside of the office communicate is the top challenge

The rise of remote working and the firm establishment of hybrid work can make it
very hard for employees to create and strengthen their professional relationships
across disparate working groups and business silos. Our report on the impact of
hybrid working, published earlier in 2022, threw this into stark relief with 48% of
respondents telling us that they felt disconnected when working outside the office
and 46% finding it harder to communicate with colleagues. Not only was this
accompanied by lower productivity, but loneliness was also a significant
by-product.

Microsoft leadership research showed that 43% of leaders believe

relationship-building is the top challenge for remote work and that they are – as a
result - looking to prioritise their efforts to connect and engage employees. It’s the
power of this need that lies behind the development and launch of Viva Engage.
 THREE EASY STEPS TO GET STARTED NOW

Here is our quick guide to using Yammer and Viva Engage to start connecting and
engaging your employees today.

1. USE THE LAUNCH OF VIVA ENGAGE TO BUILD EXCITEMENT IN

YOUR BUSINESS AND REINVIGORATE THE USE OF YAMMER
Seen by some as a passive app – where users simply consume corporate communications
fed through the tool – Yammer has huge potential when actively used across your business.
As with any network, the more it’s used the more value it brings. Viva Engage brings with it a
fantastic opportunity to activate that usage. Educate your employees about the storyline
feature and encourage them to post. Encourage users to download the Microsoft Teams app
and access Viva Engage to see how Communities will continue to work on the move. You
could even run competitions for the best cover photo, most impactful video, or the post with
the greatest engagement.

2. BAKE YAMMER INTO YOUR OPERATION

Make sure you are clear about your governance, strategy and user terms across Yammer
and Viva Engage. What is your community admin structure and how are you incentivising
and supporting them? How is Yammer introduced and used in your induction process for new
starters? How up to date is your user documentation? Microsoft provide a wealth of
supporting tools to help your business to adopt and govern your Yammer experience.

3. LOOK TO THE VIVA EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE SUITE

To help you to plan an integrated, seamless journey for your employees across the Microsoft
Viva experience. Viva Engage – for example – provides a greater depth and personalisation to
Viva Connections by adding two-way, content rich, dynamic connections for your
employees. Viva Topics can also come to life through Viva Engage with the social lens it
provides over your more static organisational files bringing more knowledge, conversation,
and – ultimately - value to that content.

If you’re ready to start exploring Viva in your organisation, speak to us about a

Viva Workshop to help you get started.

Start the conversation