After 10 years of bringing community and conversations into Microsoft apps, the familiar social networking tool Yammer will be rebranded under the Viva umbrella, taking on the name Viva Engage. Starting from March 2023, the Communities app for Outlook as well as the Yammer mobile app for iOS and Android will receive an update to complete the branding change. Keep reading to learn more about the latest announcement.
What doe this mean for Yammer?
As we’ve covered above, From March onwards the Communities app for Outlook and Yammer mobile apps will all be rebranded into Viva Engage. It’s important to note this change does not change the current capabilities, value, or pricing of Yammer for existing Microsoft 365 customers or M365 SKUs. There will also be no changes to the features and functionality of Yammer as a result of this change.
You will also continue to experience and benefit from the power of Viva Engage just as you did with Yammer, with no loss of continuity.
New experiences coming to Viva Engage
As well as the changes to Yammer, Microsoft elaborated on the wave of capabilities that were announced back in September 2022. These capabilities will now be available worldwide for Viva Suite and Viva Topics customers. Here’s a quick refresh on some of the features available.
Leadership Corner
The aim of the Leadership Corner feature is to give leaders a platform to connect with their employees, showcase resource groups and improve workplace culture. Employees can see the leaders they are connected to within their organisation and from here delegates can promote, aggregate and launch initiatives from one place.
Another exciting feature to come from Leadership Corner is the introduction of a new event style in Viva Engage called Ask me Anything (AMA) events to further encourage engagement. These will work as discussion threads where you can upvote, Q&A and use GIFs and images similar to a Reddit thread.
Campaigns
The next feature discussed in the Microsoft announcement is campaigns. The campaigns feature will allow leaders to create campaigns to drive key initiatives. These could include campaigns like charity events/fundraisers.
Viva Suite and Viva Topics Tab
Next up, answers in Microsoft Viva will be rolling out to customers of the Viva suite and Viva Topics as a new tab. The idea behind this feature is to improve communication when employees seek advice from colleagues, especially in a remote setting.
Advanced Analytics
Lastly, we have advanced analytics which will allow users to drill down into dashboards and metrics which offer customisable date ranges and give further information on reach and engagement within Viva Engage.
The new experiences are rolling out now within Microsoft Viva. If you have any questions about these new features or the Microsoft Viva platform, get in touch with our team.
