Yammer Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Owner with 51-200 employees

May 1, 2014

Do You Use Yammer at Work? And Why Not SharePoint?

There was a question a while back on the Microsoft MVPs LinkedIn group (YAFSN! – see below) wondering “Do you use Yammer at work?” I’m still trying to figure out how much I want to use Yammer. As when Google+ came out, I’m trying it. I pretty much abandoned G+, and Yammer may well go the same way for most things. I got into Yammer via an invitation into SPYam from Bjørn Furuknap with my USPJA email address. Now I’m trapped into that identity for SPYam (the network for SharePoint discussions that Joel Oleson set up – ping me if you’d like an invitation) but have to use my work email address to access the SharePoint MVP network into which Microsoft has seemingly decided to move all communications. That tying of one’s identity to a single email domain (it seems you can’t combine domains into one über identity) is my biggest beef with the Yammer platform. I’m sure they will work that out, though. (Yammer probably could have done it in a few weeks. Now that it’s a Microsoft product, maybe in Yammer 2016, and you’ll only need to add a three server farm to enable it.) I read a constant stream of complaints about other aspects of how Yammer works in – natch – Yammer. Sure, there are some true annoyances (no Shift-Enter in post entry, no parity between clients, Adobe Air!) but I could give you a litany of similar annoyances for every single YAFSN. User interfaces seem to always have annoyances. The important thing is how fast the people who develop the platform can react to consistent complaints and improve. Everyone seems to think we need YAFSN (Yet Another Fantastic Social Network), but each new one that comes along simply fragments the landscape further. Who has the time to check dozens of these damn things? Social in the workplace must be a performance improvement, not a detriment. (I’d argue we should hold our personal social network use to the same standard. LOL catz!) if I have to check four or five social networks constantly in order to be well-informed, that drags down my efficiency. I’ll keep using Yammer for the MVP stuff because I don’t have any choice, of course. Gotta get all those “secrets” somehow. It really makes me wonder, though, why we don’t use SharePoint to talk about SharePoint. It seems that in the vast majority of cases, SharePointilists prefer to use a different technology to communicate about SharePoint. That, to me, raises a far more important question: “Do you use SharePoint at work?”

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user9204

Marketing at a local government with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 29, 2013

Yammer – don’t worry about it, just do it

About three months ago we took the decision to introduce Yammer across Wakefield Council. A few of us had tried it out for a while, and once we’d convinced colleagues that there were genuine benefits and that using it wouldn’t lead to widespread negativity it was launched to the rest of the staff with online access.

For those who haven’t used it, Yammer is a free to use internal social network, that in our case only those whose email address ends in @wakefield.gov.uk can use. If you research it you’ll be told of numerous professional benefits, including sharing links, requesting answers to work issues, and bringing people together who don’t normally get to see each other.

These are all true, but so far it is probably the latter that has been most prominent on a professional level, with almost 800 people signing up and joining numerous groups on the network set up by colleagues. The groups have included communications, leisure, public health, and libraries, in other words mostly following service area lines, as you might expect at first.

Whilst an impressive number have joined, I think many have subscribed out of curiosity and are still waiting to see how it might benefit them. We have deliberately offered limited guidance on how to use Yammer, just enough to get people started, as we wanted to see what people would do themselves once they’d signed up.

The results have been fascinating, and with each passing week more varied posts are appearing. But although there have been many topics and events discussed in impressive depth, including public health, car parking, Christmas lights, joining the new library and much more, it is the social element that has most caught my eye.

In the short time that we’ve had Yammer, the most used discussion group has been around cycling, both cycling to work and in people’s own time, and a work based running club has also emerged. Born from Yammer, runners who are mostly based in our new building Wakefield One, now meet once a week after work to go for a run, which is just fantastic.

Bringing 1,100 staff into a new building where previously they had been in different buildings has helped, but the fact that Yammer is bringing people together both virtually and in person is a real benefit.

We’re still new to Yammer so no doubt there’s much more we will learn from each other, but I think we’ve made a good start. Hopefully people will continue to join and find what they are looking for, and hopefully they’ll be even more interaction.

If you haven’t yet tried Yammer because you’re worried it might lead to one big online argument or a barrage of critical comments, give it a go. It doesn’t work out like that at all. It is a simple yet effective way of bringing people together to help each other out through an online conversation, and in some cases bringing them together face to face to socialise. You can’t argue with either of those.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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reviewer1208139

Senior Manager at a non-tech company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Oct 22, 2019

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A solution that isn't flexible, doesn't offer integrations and isn't useful for certain businesses

Pros and Cons

"The design of the solution is its most valuable feature."

"Yammer should be able to integrate with Microsoft products, such as Outlook."

What is our primary use case?

I primarily use the solution for business related chatting. We use it mainly to publish and to have social communications on the business side. On a business level, it's used for the internal team to publish their opinions or their ideas, and share them to the group.

How has it helped my organization?

What is most valuable?

The design of the solution is its most valuable feature.

What needs improvement?

Yammer shall not stay an independent non integrated service and shall not duplicate what team and outlook services do - it can be the heart of outlook conversations / publishing

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable.

What other advice do I have?

I've found Team or Skype for Business are more useful than Yammer.

I'd rate the solution three out of ten.

I did not find Yammer too useful for my type of business. You cannot sell a Ferrari to someone who does not drive very fast, for example, as they would give Ferrari a low rating because they aren't using as it's meant to be used. For my type of business, I need something to be more flexible on integration. I'm not on the marketing side and do not need to publish something on Yammer for everyone to see, or for everyone to share their opinion on.

If Yammer were to have more integration, the product might be more useful for me. I'd probably rate it at a nine or ten in that case. However, for me, in terms of helping my type of business, it's not ideal and I'm rating it rather low.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user629934

Sr. Application Analyst at a healthcare company with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 21, 2017

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Allows users in different teams to interact in real time. There needs to be access to a channel, without the need to sign in.

What is most valuable?

Integration into SharePoint is a valuable feature as it provides better exposure and access to users.

How has it helped my organization?

It allows users in different teams to interact in real time.

What needs improvement?

There needs to be access to a channel, without the need to sign-in.

Right now, if you are a Yammer channel owner, then you can ‘invite’ people to join it. That invitation would require the other person to accept the invitation and ‘login’ to Yammer. By logging into the Office 365 Portal, you are not automatically logged into Yammer. Yammer is currently run as a separate portal experience instead of a blended service, i.e., in the use case of ‘channels’.

If I embed my Yammer channel into a SharePoint Web Part and you are not logged into Yammer, your will see a block on the screen that says ‘login’.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no scalability issues.

How is customer service and technical support?

The technical support was good.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is a part of the enterprise licensing.

What other advice do I have?

Test with users
Know your use case
Get management support for use case

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user9714

Consultant at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees

Sep 11, 2013

Using Yammer Internally- guideliness and governance

I have had a love hate relationship with Yammer. There are indeed both guidelines and governance in play. Most of the processes in place are concerned about ensuring client confidentiality and compliance rather than expected use. For internal comms Yammer was being used as another channel to reach employees, however how they used Yammer was and is still maturing. Initially it was used to republish content that was already available through the Intranet, however this has now changed to one where they are more active in engaging in dialogue and supporting leaders in getting their message out (for example helping to host Yammer sessions). It has been a powerful tool, and one thing that I think it does very well is to empower employees from across the organization to contribute content and though leadership. I think that internal comms roles will shift slightly as they begin to support and encourage content from within, rather than having to be the sole authors and creators of content.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user133521Sr. Technical Manager at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

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May 20, 2016

Measuring productivity factor post implementing Social Collaboration Platform like Yammer is so important.

it_user9213

Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Aug 29, 2013

Yammer and SharePoint

We use both SharePoint and Yammer at work. Yammer works well at our 26,000 employee firm. It’s not perfect, but it provides a semi-private environment for meeting people and conversing across many different teams, something that hasn’t been as easy to do in SharePoint by itself. It doesn’t replace entirely what SharePoint does nor does it replicate other public social networks. It’s a complement to the other platforms we all use.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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May 12, 2014

Regarding the feature of starting Yammer conversations from SharePoint documents, I've been experiencing an issue with this feature since release, where the resultant URL attachment in Yammer sometimes fails to resolve due to authentication issues. I wrote to SharePoint Online and to Yammer tech support and operations teams, and only after one month I got a solution. Tech support is not very integrated from a customer perspective.

SOJI OLA

IT Consultant with 201-500 employees

Jul 10, 2017

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You can create groups that are public or private for specific users. I would like to see it integrate with Microsoft's Lync for video conferencing,

What is most valuable?

My organization makes more use of Office 365 Groups rather than Yammer.

Yammer is a good collaboration tool for the entire organization. You can create groups that are public or private for specific users.

What needs improvement?

There is a need for full integration with the other features of Office 365.

Office 365 uses Outlook for the messaging box but Yammer has it own messaging box. Searching in Yammer is restricted to its own messaging box. The Outlook box can still be accessed offline.

I would like to see Microsoft's Lync integrated with Yammer for video conferencing.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used this solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

There were no stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

There were no scalability issues.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Office 365 Groups is well-integrated with the other features of Office 365, especially SharePoint.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Yammer to new users.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user8913

Developer with 51-200 employees

Aug 22, 2013

Yammer vs. SP Social in 2013

There are several discussions on SharePoint’s social strategy going on at the moment. I had some great discussions with my MVP mate Adis during Summit last week. Since #SPC12 almost every SharePoint addicted developer, it-pro, power user has reviewed Yammer.

If you don’t know what Yammer is, here a short introduction.

Yammer is an enterprise social network, which allows you and your coworkers to communicate in a modern way as on Facebook. The huge difference between Facebook and Yammer is, Yammer is private. That means only people from your organization or the people you’ve invited to join your network can see and take part of the conversation which is going on in your Yammer network.

With the common understanding of Yammer, you should be able to follow up the ongoing discussions. Adis wrote a great post, summarizing his thoughts on SharePoint and Yammer integration and the upcoming social future. I totally agree with Adis, there are a lot of things missing at the moment. But here my thoughts on Yammer vs. SPSocial

Leak of integration

In my eyes there is still too much missing, of course you can integrate yammer into your SharePoint, but key features are missing such as SSO, seamless look ‘n feel integration. Prebuild views on Yammer depending on the current SharePoint context or the mobile story. Microsoft shipped mobile Apps for SharePoint 2013 OnDemand and OnPrem. AFAIK are these apps currently available in preview, but each of them is based on SPSocial.

SharePoint Newsfeed

The Newsfeed in SharePoint 2013 is one of the best dashboards I’ve ever seen in the product. In my eyes it’s boosting the productivity because you can get an overview within no time. You got all the information you’re interested in, documents, people, sites, tags you’re following. That’s exactly what I’m looking for when I should move on to Yammer. Because I don’t like to decrease the productivity just because I use Yammer.

OnPrem story

Adis mentioned the OnPrem story also in his post. For a lot of German customers its necessary that all information is stored OnPrem. I ran into various situations where management raised the red flag because they are not going to move business critical data into the cloud. Unfortunately these kinds of customers don’t hear our arguments for moving into the cloud.

User adoption

While #SPC12 we launched our corporate Yammer, in order to structure the entire conversation from our company. The adoption within the first four weeks was really good. A lot of employees joined the Yammer network in order to see what Yammer actually is. They followed the invitations from other employees. There was no official announcement form the company, some key users started inviting their co-workers and within 2 weeks almost 85% of the company were registered to the corporate Yammer network. People started creating their own groups depending on the divisions they’re working for or the topics they’re currently on. In summary I’d say the adoption within the first month was great. We’d good conversation on Yammer about problems within different teams, which was a little bit surprising to me, normally most of the employees aren’t participating to new technologies that much. But Yammer had a better start. Unfortunately the good start doesn’t mean a good every-day usage. Right now 4 months after launching Yammer, only a few (mostly technical enthusiasts) keep on using Yammer every day. The crowd hasn’t signed on for the last 2 months… They are again writing emails, doing Lync chats or discuss important things on the floor.

And this is exactly the worst point for a new platform, we did this learning curve with the adoption of SharePoint as centralized communication and collaboration platform a decade ago, users are falling back to their old-fashioned habits, without teaching them actively (let’s say 1hr per week) the adoption of a new social network will not work. (At least for the company I currently work for) This drives me crazy, it’s not Yammers fault, it’s a human fault. But Yammer will be faced with this problem. Enabling SharePoint’s OOB Social features within this company is easier, because they use SharePoint for everything.

Summary

The ‘user adoption’ is unfortunately the biggest problem for Yammer, I like the idea of Yammer, but until Yammer isn’t fluently integrated into SharePoint / SharePoint Online, it’s a hard way for us – SharePoint enthusiasts – to move customers, friends, co-workers on the Yammer train.

Disclosure: The company I work for is a Microsoft Partner - https://www.experts-inside.com

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.