This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: New blog articles in Microsoft Community Hub.
Yammer has been powering community experiences in Microsoft for over a decade. In that time, we’ve seen our customers use Yammer to influence their company culture, bring employees together during times of trial, share knowledge and empower employees with a voice that positively influences change within their organizations. During this period, you’ve inspired us, you’ve shaped us, and you’ve grown with us. Six months ago, we took the first step to rebrand the Yammer Communities app for Teams to Viva Engage, to align Yammer more closely with our Viva suite of employee experiences. Since then, we’ve continued to add new functionality to both Viva Engage and the Yammer apps including storyline. Over the last several months we’ve heard your feedback that having two apps surfacing similar experiences and the same services and content has introduced confusion and made it challenging to drive adoption and create clarity for end users.
Yammer will become Viva Engage
Over the next year, Yammer experiences will be rebranded to Viva Engage to better align with Microsoft Viva and become a key pillar of the Microsoft Employee Experience Platform. We are excited that this change will unify Viva Engage across web, mobile, Teams, Outlook and other experiences. This change is a direct result of the feedback we’ve heard from you, our customers, and it will help us deliver an integrated experience and a single Viva Engage platform across apps and endpoints—wherever you choose to engage.
I want to assure you that these branding changes will not change the current capabilities, value, or pricing of Yammer for existing Microsoft 365 customers and/or M365 SKUs. All the capabilities you enjoy today with your existing M365 license will continue to be available to you, just under a new name, Viva Engage.
New features are rolling out today
In September, we announced new capabilities coming to Viva Engage that enable leadership engagement, authentic expression, corporate communications, events, and knowledge sharing & discovery. Today, these experiences begin to roll out worldwide.
Newly-released features for Viva suite customers include:
- Storyline Announcements for leaders
- Leadership Corner for employees
- Ask Me Anything Events
- Social Media #Campaigns
- Advanced Analytics
- Answers in Viva
Answers in Viva is also available to Viva Topics customers.
A look at the new campaigns experience in Viva Engage.
Learn more about these features here.
Getting the new features
- Native Mode: The new experiences require Native Mode, and soon we will require all networks to be upgraded to Native Mode to allow users, groups, and content to be compatible with and mapped to their counterparts in Azure Active Directory and Microsoft 365. Learn more about what this change means and how to plan your upgrade.
- New Admin Center: Admins will see a new Viva Engage Admin Center where they are able to complete tasks and assign roles and responsibilities for licensed Viva Suite users. Learn more about these new admin actions here.
What’s next for Viva Engage
In 2023, all of Yammer will evolve to become Viva Engage, retiring the Yammer brand. The first phase will start in March with updates to the Communities app for Outlook and Yammer mobile apps for iOS and Android.
In March the Communities app for Outlook will be updated to reflect Viva Engage branding. This change will happen automatically, with no action necessary to see this update.
Additionally in March, the Yammer mobile apps for iOS and Android will be renamed Viva Engage to provide a native mobile-first experience that’s optimized for social sharing and rich media. You will need to update the app to see the changes.
As we refine the timeline beyond March for the remaining Yammer endpoints to be rebranded to Viva Engage, we will continue to share details with you.
Join us for a Viva Engage AMA
The Viva Engage product and engineering teams look forward to building the future of this product with you throughout this year and beyond. To learn more about the changes announced today, join me February 23rd for an AMA with the product leaders from the Viva Engage team.
So, what can you expect to happen next?
The rebrand to Viva Engage will happen in phases throughout 2023, with the Outlook and mobile apps to change first, followed by the web experience. Here’s a brief timeline:
- February: You can expect an in-app rebrand banner to appear in the Yammer mobile app giving you advance notice of the change.
- March: The Yammer mobile app becomes Viva Engage. It’ll still be discoverable as Yammer for a while (e.g., in Apple’s Spotlight Search). Around the same time, the Communities app in Outlook will also be rebranded to Viva Engage.
- April: You can expect an in-app rebrand banner to appear in the Yammer.com web experience giving you advance notice of the change.
- Summer 2023: The Yammer.com web experience becomes Viva Engage, with a few UX/UI enhancements. The Yammer.com URL will remain for a while as the team makes additional backend updates.
- Later in 2023: Yammer.com URLs will be updated. We plan to support redirection for legacy URLs so that existing links and integrations continue to function.
Like all rebrands, this shift will take time. As we complete the rebrand of Yammer to Viva Engage, you can expect a familiar experience. All the existing functionality you love, along with the latest features, remain the same. We’ll share updates along the way to keep you informed.
Thank you for being our partner and guide on this journey. While this begins the retirement of our storied Yammer brand, it marks a thrilling new beginning for us to co-create with you experiences that will revolutionize the way your employees connect and thrive at work.
FAQ
Where can I get help setting up Viva Engage?
Reach out to FastTrack, your account manager, or learn how to deploy Yammer/Viva Engage here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/yammer/configure-your-yammer-network/configure-yammer
You can also find helpful adoption materials at Viva Engage – Microsoft Adoption . We will continue to add materials for customers to use for communication and training as more capabilities become available.
Will the same content moderation and other admin policies set in Yammer be transferred over to Viva Engage?
Yes, all administrative policies and capabilities will remain.