getting started with yammer - businessproductivity.com
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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.