SharePoint and Yammer

As a recent addition to SharePoint some people are confused about Yammer asking "what is it" and "when should I use it?". Yammer is Microsoft's newest social tool enabling employees to communicate and share information beyond the normal barriers of departments and location.

By default, in SharePoint the SharePoint Newsfeed is available. Once Yammer is activated, SharePoint Newsfeed becomes unavailable. A SharePoint farm administrator can switch on Yammer which swaps the Newsfeed for Yammer. If you can not see a Yammer button in the app launcher, you do not have Yammer enabled for SharePoint.

For an organisation to make the most of its employees skills and initiative it is important that employees have an awareness of what is happening within the company and that they have a simple way to provide ideas and other information. Imagine if you are an engineer working in the American branch of an organisation you might like to know what other engineers are doing elsewhere in the organisation they might also benefit from your input. Yammer gives like-minded people in an organisation a way to discover each other and share ideas and other information including business documents.

Rather than using announcements and news to tell employees about things that have already happened within your organisation Yammer allows employees to see live information about what is currently happening and also provide direct input.