'Net Features : yammer

Yammer Will Help Microsoft Office Be More Social

Michael Garrity — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:35:00 GMT

Taking a page out of Google’s digital book, Microsoft now seems to be trying to add a social spine that runs through all of its various software products, and it’s using its acquisition of the enterprise social network Yammer to do it.

In fact, according to the Senior Director of Microsoft’s Office Division, Jared Spataro, in a blog post published Tuesday, Yammer is the company’s “big bet for enterprise social, and we’re committed to making it the underlying social layer for all of our products.”

The first step in this process was integrating Yammer with the Microsoft Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) platform, but it’s certainly not stopping there! In fact, this summer, the company plans to release an update to Office 365 that will let customers replace their SharePoint “newsfeeds” with Yammer, in addition to supporting single sign-on and seamless navigation from Office 365’s global navigation bar.

Included in this new, improved and Yammer-incorporated version of Office 365 will be rich document capabilities that let users integrate Office Web Apps to add editing and co-editing capabilities to Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents. Plus, by 2014, Microsoft apparently plans to initiate a 90-day update cycle for the social enhancements included in Office 365 to “combine social, collaboration, email, instant messaging, voice, video and line of business applications in innovative new ways.” In other words, the company will be able to incrementally flesh out the connections between Yammer and Office 365.

However, Office 365 isn’t the only Microsoft product that’s going to be getting a boost of Yammer. The company is also going to allow customers to replace their SharePoint newsfeeds with Yammer when conducting on-premises installations of the SharePoint Server 2013. This will, in turn, create a sort of hybrid between the two services.

The Web Professional's Productivity Toolbox

Administrator — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:21:00 GMT

More often than not, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to complete all of the tasks on your to-do list. Attempting to allot the appropriate amount of time to accomplishing something, and for the countless distractions that you’ll likely face while you work on it, can sometimes feel daunting and futile. That’s why so many of us turn to productivity tools to help us ease the burden and utilize our time more constructively.

And now, just as the Internet giveth, it also taketh away, as yesterday, Google announced that it was going to be doing away with its Google Reader Web feed aggregator. The company cites a declining user base as the reason for the discontinuation, but many Web workers (and media professionals – go figure) that keep up with their Reader feeds all day, every day were incensed. Naturally, they took their outrage to Twitter, but so far, it hasn’t done much to alter Google’s decision.

The death of Google Reader, and the subsequent outcry, shows just how much Web professionals depend upon their productivity tools to accomplish their various daily tasks. Reader addicts will (and probably already have) find a new RSS aggregator, such as Fever or NewsBlur, but there are plenty of other useful tools that they can utilize to increase productivity. Let’s dig into The Web Professional’s Productivity Toolbox to see if we can find what you may need.

Feedly

Feedly is easily the most popular, and best, alternative to Google Reader. This free RSS feed aggregator runs on both Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browsers and as a mobile application for both iOS and Android devices. Users can save posts, create categories to organize their various feeds and even choose from six different layout options to pick the look that best suits them.

Pomodroido

Even the most successful professionals can get distracted when working on tasks throughout the day, however, Pomodroido aims to change that. This free Android app helps users manage their time better by breaking down work periods into 25-minute intervals, which can be adjusted by the user if desired. Workers take a break after each work period, so that they can start the next interval refreshed and without distractions. Moreover, the app includes a ranking system, which rewards users based on the work that they complete.

Chrome Developer Tools

Web developers that prefer Google’s Chrome browser (and let’s be honest, that’s probably most of them) can use Chrome Developer Tools to gain access to the browser’s internals and their Web applications. The suite is largely based on WebKit Web Inspector from the WebKit open source project, and includes an Elements panel and tools for resources, networks, scripts, timelines, profiles and audits, as well as a fully featured, user-friendly console.

IFTTT

This handy automation tool, which stands for “if this, then that,” allows users to create their own tasks (recipes) by connecting two channels together. Once each channel has been activated, users create recipes by selecting one channel to signal a trigger that results in an action in a different channel. In other words, If This happens in one channel, Then That happens in the connected channel. For example, you can create a recipe to update your Twitter profile picture when your Facebook picture is changed. This recipe helps Web workers maintain consistent branding across platforms with little effort. Users can connect with 59 different channels through the platform, including Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, HootSuite, Gmail and weather.

LiquidPlanner

This online project management software helps businesses streamline their workflows by providing scheduling, collaboration, time tracking, analytics and reporting features. Since it has a particular focus on adding a social element to project management, the platform also includes comment streams for every task and project and the ability to attach notes, documents or images to a task, as well as email integrations that allow users to receive notifications about project updates in their inboxes. Plus, a partnership with Box adds cloud functionality to the solution to make sharing and collaborating on documents easier; the Box integration even provides some advanced document management features, such as desktop syncing, document versioning and access controls for project collateral.

InboundWriter

Anyone who produces content for the ’Net will want to leverage this platform; because it helps writers optimize their articles for better audience engagement. InboundWriter does this by identifying popular topics for your audience, offering keyword data that helps writers create articles that will be easier to find in the search results and suggesting article structure ideas for better readability. In fact, the platform is sort of like an online writing coach that uses real-time search and social data to help writers produce better content.

Dropbox

Don’t let Dropbox’s popularity among Web professionals and everyone else fool you, this is a serious tool that has earned all of the acclaim it receives. While many of its alternatives require a Web browser interface, Dropbox can run natively on almost any PC (even those using Linux), as well as mobile devices that run on either Android or iOS. It will also automatically sync your files with all of your local devices, so you can access them from pretty much anywhere, even if you don’t have an Internet connection.

Sprout Social

Most businesses have a presence on multiple social sites, which can make posting numerous pieces of content daily on each network very time consuming. This is where social media management platforms like Sprout Social come in handy. Not only can this platform be leveraged to schedule publishing times of status updates throughout the day on a variety of social networks, but it also provides analytics and monitoring tools that provide insights to help users better optimize their posting strategies. Furthermore, Sprout Social offers a mobile app, which allows businesses to manage and monitor their social accounts while on the go.

Coolendar

This planning software helps users combine the important dates on their calendar with everyday tasks that need to be completed, which makes it easier to keep up with commitments. Coolendar is available on the Web and on mobile devices so that no matter where you are, you can keep track of your day. The platform provides a simple list of planning entries, offers alerts that find people regardless of where they are (email, messenger, Web, desktop, mobile, Twitter), allows users to leverage tags to stay organized and makes it simple to create group plans.

Yammer

As one of the most popular internal communication tools on the Web, Yammer is an enterprise social network that allows users with valid company email addresses to participate in private company conversations. The Yammer platform allows users to segment employees by creating specific groups (such as sales, marketing or IT), as well as makes it easy for employees to collaborate, whether they are in or out of the office, via the Yammer mobile application for Android, iOS, Blackberry and Windows Phone devices. Allison Howen is an Associate Editor at Website Magazine, writing primarily about e-commerce and social media.

About the Authors

Michael Garrity is an Associate Editor at Website Magazine, focusing primarily on search, design and development and affiliate marketing.

Allison Hown is an Associate Editor at Website Magazine, focusing primarily on Ecommerce and Social Media.

HootSuite Adds Yammer to App Directory

Allison Howen — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:05:00 GMT

HootSuite is constantly adding applications to its ever-expanding App Directory, but this newest integration grabbed our attention because it features one of the most popular private enterprise social networks – Yammer.

The new app enables social media managers to conveniently monitor and reply to Yammer conversations without leaving the HootSuite dashboard. Once Yammer is accessed within HootSuite, users have the ability to view and engage with conversations from Yammer’s main feed, inbox and groups, as well as post updates, add attachments and search for content across Yammer networks.

This app should prove to be very useful, especially for teams who may need to collaborate quickly to answer customer questions from other social networks, such as Facebook or Twitter.

“The integration of Yammer demonstrates the increasing role of social collaboration in business. As companies grow, employees become increasingly decentralized from one another and rely on multiple tools like Yammer to work through and complete projects.” says Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite. “Use of social media continues to grow beyond marketing. We see departments including customer service, human resources, sales, public relations and research and development teams are looking to HootSuite for solutions to tackle collaboration problems.”

Monitor Employee Emotions with Yammer Integration

Allison Howen — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:15:00 GMT

Want to know the morale of employees within your organization? A new Yammer integration allows you to do just that.

The popular enterprise social network recently announced an integration with Kanjoya, which is an emotion-aware sentiment analysis company. The integration provides data on the attitudes and emotions of employees based on conversations from within a Yammer network.

Kanjoya's Crane analytics dashboard uses Yammer's open APIs to retrieve data from Yammer groups and the overall company network. Then, organizations can leverage the analytics dashboard to measure emotions across departments and geographies. For example, when an HR manager announces a change to her company's health benefits, she can view the Crane analytics dashboard to gain insight into employees' responses. The analytics enable her to determine if the general sentiment is "surprised," "annoyed," or one of 80 other specific emotions. Additionally, if the change only affects workers in Europe, she can leverage the group-level analytics to view emotions drawn specifically from the "London Team" group on Yammer.

"The conversations in Yammer provide a wealth of insight into employee sentiment across all facets of the business,” says Armen Berjikly, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kanjoya. “Kanjoya's Emotional Intelligence engine takes this data from Yammer and delivers detailed, actionable analytics, changing the way companies monitor internal sentiment from subjective gut-feel to data-driven."

Other features of the Kanjoya integration include keyword search for searching analytics on a specific topic, a sentiment graph to compare the volume of emotions, a word cloud for visualizing specific words that are associated with a conversation, and influencer analysis, which showcases the most replied to, praised and liked individuals.

The integration is currently available for all Yammer Enterprise users. Verified admins can sign up for a Crane account to try the integration free for up to 30 days, and can contact Kanjoya about pricing during the 30-day trial period.

Yammer Your Way to CRM and HR Insights

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:35:00 GMT

Enterprise social network platform Yammer has announced integrations CRM and project management platform AffinityLive and HR Software-as-a-Service Subscribe-HR.

The integrations will allow Yammer users to see activity stories from both platforms which will appear in Yammer's scrolling sidebar module.

Activity stories from AffinityLive published in the Ticker enable critical issues -- such as a closed deal or an escalated support ticket -- to be surfaced faster and allow teams to work more collaboratively across departments. The integration also works with AffinityLive's automatic email capture, so that teams are alerted when important client emails are sent, improving client service and response time.

Subscribe-HR customers can use Yammer to discuss and collaborate on HR tasks such as company policy changes that appear as activity stories in Yammer's Ticker. Additionally, employee leave requests are posted into the Yammer feed allowing for greater transparency.

"The continued expansion of our partner ecosystem marks a significant growth opportunity for both Yammer and our customers," said An Le, vice president of Business Development, Yammer. "We are committed to integrating with leading third-party business applications across the globe such as AffinityLive and Subscribe-HR, making Yammer the social layer across all enterprise applications."

Yammer Integrations Appeal to the Enterprise

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:30:00 GMT

Enterprise social network provider Yammer, a platform our editorial staff uses internally here at Website Magazine, announced an integration with SAP. Customers that have the Yammer SAP Connector installed will see updates from all business suite applications including HR, ERP and CRM.

The Yammer SAP Connector, built in partnership with technology services provider Freeborders (a certified SAP developer), is a plug-in installed on a customer's SAP instance. The plugin adds the capability for users to follow data objects in SAP. When changes to those objects occur, the event shows up in the users activity ticker which links back to the original record in SAP.

A sales rep, for example, may see that a customer's billing transaction failed. When the rep clicks on thes story inside of Yammer, the link will then open the ERP record in a seperate tab of their browser.

Yammer also announced several other interesting integrations from partners using their open API:

- Business content aggregation platform GageIn posts articles to Yammer in addition to publishing stories about key topics and forum activity into the Ticker.

- Kindling publishes new ideas, votes, comments and other updates in the Ticker, building awareness and engagement for innovation campaigns.

- Media monitoring platform Moreover utilizes Yammer Embed, adding a conversation layer to the media intelligence service.

- Cloud-based workflow management platform Sparqlight utilizes Yammer Connect to authenticate users and publish workflow task stories in Ticker.

"The integrations we announced today are a continuation of our strategy to be the social layer on top of all systems of record companies rely on, improving collaboration and decision-making around critical business activity," says David Sacks, CEO, Yammer. "In particular, the Yammer SAP Connector increases the value of Yammer for many of our large enterprise customers who use SAP daily to manage business processes."

Yammer also announced an affiliate partner program today, which might just be worth a look for agencies and consulting groups.

Yammer Connect Makes Enterprise Social & Connected

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 17:48:00 GMT

Social collaboration platform Yammer released a collection of plugins today dubbed Yammer Connect which enable companies and developers to connect their business applications or intranet with Yammer and add Yammer feeds to those tools.

The new plugins, which rely on Yammer's open Javascript API, allows users to bring their Yammer identity to other business applications (this is the Yammer Login Button) and an Embed feature which enables companies to embed Yammer feeds into their intranet or other apps including content management systems, intranets or CRM platforms. The Login Button and the Yammer JavaScript API are available immediately. Yammer Embed is currently in beta and will be available to all users later in Q3.

Yammer has been on a tear of late, being named a leader in enterprise mobile collaboration by Forester, adding Japan's online shopping powerhouse Rakuten to their client roster, and an announcement that Yammer users could connect automatically with CRM leader Salesforce.