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Do You Know the Difference Between Yammer and Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft 365 offers many tools, all equally powerful. However, some applications in the ecosystem may appear very similar to you. You probably know that Microsoft Teams is considered a must when it comes to collaboration, but you might have also heard of Yammer, which allows you to create live events. But how can you know which platform to use? 

 

Yammer 

For context, Yammer was acquired by Microsoft in 2012, and was supposed to be a social network for businesses. Yet the application had little success in most organizations, largely because the platform was not really well integrated with other applications in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem (formerly Office 365). The main attraction of Yammer now is the fact that it integrates with SharePoint, so you can easily embed a conversation for a Yammer group (now called Community) on a SharePoint page – making SharePoint a bit more social. 

 

Microsoft Teams

The majority of you are probably already familiar with Microsoft Teams. It was in 2017 that Microsoft launched its flagship platform, which continues to register new users year after year. The Teams application has been well received and adopted by most organizations due to its simplicity, ability to customize, and strong integration with the rest of Microsoft 365’s applications (SharePoint, Outlook, Forms, Power Automate, etc.). The main advantage of Teams over Yammer is its integration with all these other apps. And of course, the added ability to have team calls (video calls, formerly Skype), in all of them. 

 

When To Use Teams and Yammer? 

Microsoft Teams 

  • Project collaboration 
  • Team and group calls 
  • Integration with Power Automate and other Microsoft 365 resources 

 

Yammer 

    • Another tool for communicating with employees (i.e., HR having an informal question-and-answer channel) 
    • Private group conversations on specific topics 

Different Environments for Teams and Yammer 

For Large Companies 

If you are a large organization (with thousands of users), you can certainly benefit from using Yammer as an alternative communication tool. Much like in the example above, Human Resources may have an informal community to answer questions about vacation policy and medical benefits. Or, a CEO can have their own community to hold virtual meetings (townhalls) with employees. 

For Smaller Businesses 

If you have 100 employees in your organization, you may not need to adopt the Yammer solution. Don’t bother creating a new discussion thread if you’re already using Teams and Outlook to communicate – it just adds unnecessary complexity. 

 

Is There an Alternative to Yammer for Smaller Businesses? 

If you want the benefits of Yammer company-wide but aren’t sure about the platform itself, you can create an organization-wide team in Teams. The beauty of this type of group is that it automatically includes everyone within the organization, even as people come and go. 

 

Creating such a group in Teams requires you to be a Microsoft 365 global administrator. And although creating the group creates other items, you don’t need to use them. Also, if you want to control conversations from different channels, you can moderate them as needed. However, the ability to create a group like this is limited to five people. 

 

In short…

Although the distinction between Teams and Yammer can be difficult at times, the two platforms are quite different. Choosing between these two tools depends on your needs and your internal management system. If you would like to know more, please do not hesitate to contact one of our specialists at MS Solutions. 

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