Communicate with Viva Engage (Yammer)

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About this lesson

Explore the Viva Engage (Yammer) interface and understand how it can be used to build communities.

Quick reference

Communicate with Viva Engage (Yammer)

Create communities to easily share information and engage with team members.

When to use

We use Yammer when we want a space that brings together content and discussion from across different communities and channels together in one place.

Instructions

Viva Engage (Yammer) is a messaging system with a Facebook-style interface for our organization. It helps us share information and communicate with colleagues and team members. 

  • From the App Launcher, click Yammer

Yammer is a closed messaging system. We have a feed where we can post messages, reply to messages, and comment and react to posts from others. 

It differs from Facebook because we don't collect friends. Everybody in your Microsoft 365 organization is already a member. 

The Home feed

The Home feed is the central hub of Yammer. This is where we can see messages posted by others.

The important point here is that this is just a feed. The feed brings together conversations and posts that have taken place not only in Yammer communities but also in related teams and Microsoft groups. 

Communities

We can view and join different communities in Yammer. 

  • Click Communities in the left-hand menu

Here we can see the communities we are a member of and also public communities that we can join. To join a community, click the Join button. 

By default, everyone in our organization is part of the All Company community. Messages posted in this community can be seen by everyone. In general, company-wide messages are posted in this community. 

Inbox

We have access to a private inbox when working in Yammer. 

  • Click Inbox from the left-hand menu

Messages that are direct replies to something we have posted will appear in here. 

For example, I have a message from Alex in my inbox because he posted a reply to one of my comments. 

Favorites

We can add communities that we access frequently to favorites to make them easier to access. 

  • Click on Communities
  • Click on the Community you want to add to favorites
  • Click the heart icon

The community will now show in the Favorites area. 

Create a Community

We can create our own communities in Yammer. 

  • In the My communities area, click Create a community
  • Give the community a name
  • Add a description (optional)
  • Add members
  • Click Edit to change the privacy settings (private or public)
  • Click Create

Once we've created a community, we can add content. 

We can start a discussion with community members, ask a question, send praise or create a poll. 

It's worth noting that we don't need to be in a community to start a discussion. 

  • Click on the Home feed

When we are viewing our home feed, we aren't in any particular community. However, we can start a discussion at the top of the feed and choose which community to post it to. 

Mentions and Reactions

Posts that have a red @ symbol next to them let you know that you have been mentioned. 

We can also react to posts and add comments. 

We can share posts to other communities or via private message. 

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  • 00:04 In this lesson, we're going to take a closer look at Viva Engage, or
  • 00:08 as it's historically been known, Yammer.
  • 00:12 Now, Viva Engage is a messaging system with a Facebook style interface for
  • 00:16 your organization.
  • 00:18 So let's dive in and take a look at it and
  • 00:21 see how it links through to other Microsoft 365 applications.
  • 00:25 So we're starting on the home page again.
  • 00:27 Let's click on our app launcher and you can see here it is in the list.
  • 00:31 So as soon as we log into it,
  • 00:33 you can see what I mean by it having a Facebook style interface.
  • 00:37 Now, Yammer, that's how I'm going to refer to it because it's a little bit quicker
  • 00:42 than Viva Engage, is a closed messaging system for your organization.
  • 00:46 And from here, you can post messages and also comment on posts.
  • 00:50 However, it differs from Facebook in the fact that you don't collect friends
  • 00:55 because everybody in your Microsoft 365 organization is already a member.
  • 01:00 Now, notice here that it's defaulted to what we call the Home feed.
  • 01:05 And you can see that selected in the menu that runs down the left-hand side.
  • 01:09 And from this Home feed,
  • 01:11 we can see any messages that have been posted by other members.
  • 01:15 However, the important thing here is that this is simply a feed.
  • 01:19 I like to think of this as an overview page of other things
  • 01:23 that are going on in other applications in Microsoft 365.
  • 01:27 So the conversations that you can see here, the messages that have been posted,
  • 01:31 these haven't been posted directly within Yammer,
  • 01:34 these have been posted in other applications in Microsoft 365.
  • 01:38 It might be a Teams message, it might be something from an Outlook group, but it
  • 01:44 all feeds through to this Home feed so we can kind of see everything in one place.
  • 01:49 Now, if we click on the Communities button underneath,
  • 01:53 it defaults to Recommended, but if I click on All,
  • 01:56 this is going to show all of the communities that you're a member of.
  • 02:01 So you can see I'm part of the Project Alpha Discussion,
  • 02:04 I'm part of the All Company group, so this will include all members,
  • 02:09 I'm part of the Water Cooler group and also Launch Event Planning.
  • 02:13 And you can see with each of these, it's telling me which ones I've joined.
  • 02:17 And if I want to leave any of these discussions, if I
  • 02:19 hover over the Joined button, it changes to Leave, so I can very simply do that.
  • 02:24 Now, the All Company community, this is included by default for all users.
  • 02:29 So this isn't a community that you need to join, and
  • 02:32 any messages posted in here can be seen by everybody.
  • 02:35 So this is really a good place to post messages that are relevant for
  • 02:40 all team members.
  • 02:41 Now, another thing to note here is the Inbox.
  • 02:44 You can see here it's indicating that I have 1 new message.
  • 02:47 If I click on this, it's showing me a message that Alex posted.
  • 02:52 And the reason why it's showing in my inbox is because this is actually a reply
  • 02:57 to something that I posted.
  • 02:59 If we carry on moving down the left-hand side,
  • 03:02 you can see we have a Favorites area.
  • 03:04 So we can favorite different communities that we are most interested in.
  • 03:07 For example, if I go back to the Communities page and let's go to All,
  • 03:12 and let's go to The Water Cooler community.
  • 03:15 Notice next to this I have a little heart icon, if I click this,
  • 03:18 it's going to favorite that community and add it into the Favorites section.
  • 03:22 So it makes it a bit quicker for me to access.
  • 03:26 Also, notice underneath,
  • 03:27 it's showing me all of the communities that I have access to.
  • 03:31 So we have Project Alpha Discussion and All Company.
  • 03:34 And you can create your own community simply by clicking on the Create
  • 03:38 a community link at the bottom.
  • 03:40 So we can give our community a name, and I'm just going to call it Marketing Team.
  • 03:44 You can then add a description, I'm not going to, just to save a bit of time.
  • 03:48 And then we can add members that we want to be part of this team.
  • 03:52 So let's add Adele, let's add Grady, and let's also add Diego.
  • 03:57 And I'm going to leave this community as a public community so that anybody can join.
  • 04:04 Let's click on Create.
  • 04:06 And there we go, I've now created a community, the community has 4 members.
  • 04:11 I can add a cover image, a community image, and you can see from within
  • 04:16 here I can actually start a discussion by creating a post effectively.
  • 04:21 I can ask a question, I can send praise to a team member, or
  • 04:25 I can create a very quick poll.
  • 04:28 So there's lots of different types of posts that you can make once
  • 04:31 you are within your community.
  • 04:33 Now, it's also worth noting that you don't need to be within your community to create
  • 04:37 a discussion, or a poll, or make a post.
  • 04:39 If you're working from the Home feed, notice right at the top here, this is
  • 04:44 where we can start a discussion, ask a question, send praise, or create a poll.
  • 04:49 And if we click in here, we get the option to select the community or
  • 04:53 storyline that we want to add this message to.
  • 04:56 So if you click in here,
  • 04:58 you're then going to see all of the communities that you have access to and
  • 05:02 you can choose which one you want to post your thoughts to.
  • 05:06 So let's just type a quick message, click on Post, and
  • 05:09 that's going to go through to The Water Cooler community.
  • 05:13 Let's just check that it's there by using our Favorites link, and you can see,
  • 05:17 there it is.
  • 05:18 Another thing that you'll see in here is if we take a look at
  • 05:22 the Project Alpha Discussion community and scroll down through the messages,
  • 05:26 notice that this message from Adele has a red @ symbol next to it.
  • 05:30 So this is effectively highlighting every time I've been mentioned in a post, and
  • 05:35 you can see here that she has actually had mentioned me.
  • 05:38 So just be aware of that as well.
  • 05:41 Also notice while we're here, if you hover over someone's profile photo or
  • 05:46 an @ mention,
  • 05:47 you're going to see a little contact card pop up that shows that person's details.
  • 05:52 Another thing that you can do with any post, and this is very similar to working
  • 05:57 in a Teams channel, is that you can like, comment, or share any of these posts.
  • 06:03 So let's give Alex's comment a like, I'm going to give him a little thumbs up,
  • 06:07 I have a few choices of emojis just here.
  • 06:10 I could add a comment under here and
  • 06:13 send that through, or I could choose to share the post.
  • 06:17 I can share to my storyline, I can share to a community,
  • 06:21 I can share to a private message, or I can copy the link.
  • 06:25 So numerous options here when it comes to sharing any posts that you see in your
  • 06:30 Home feed.
  • 06:31 So that's a very quick run through of Viva Engage or Yammer.
  • 06:36 It's basically somewhere where posts and discussions from
  • 06:39 across different communities and different parts of Microsoft 365 are stored.

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