Microsoft 365: Say goodbye to Yammer and hello to Viva Engage

Launched way back in 2008, Yammer has since become the core app for socialising within the Microsoft 365 suite. Customers around the world have used Yammer to bring employees together outside of silos, share knowledge and best practice, and crucially, drive a positive company culture.

Now, Yammer is changing to align more closely with the Microsoft Viva suite; a collection of apps and tools to transform employee experiences.

For several months, both Yammer and Viva Engage have coexisted; with the two apps surfacing similar experiences leading to confusion and low adoption for people within organisations. The solution? Over the next year, Yammer will be rebranded to Viva Engage, becoming a key pillar of the Microsoft Viva suite.

For several months, both Yammer and Viva Engage have coexisted; with the two apps surfacing similar experiences leading to confusion and low adoption for people within organisations. The solution? Over the next year, Yammer will be rebranded to Viva Engage, becoming a key pillar of the Microsoft Viva suite.

“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 our customers, and it will help us deliver an integrated experience and a single Viva Engage platform across apps and endpoints.”
- Murali Sitaram, the CVP for Viva and Yammer at Microsoft.

Yammer to Viva Engage timeline

The rebrand to Viva Engage will happen in phases throughout 2023. We’ve put together this handy timeline to help make it clear what that looks like:

What does this mean for Yammer customers?

You do not need to do anything – these changes will apply automatically. All the capabilities you enjoy within Yammer under your current Microsoft 365 license will continue to be available to you. Albeit, under the new Viva Engage name and branding. We understand that for now, the pricing will also stay the same.

However, you will also get a whole host of new features, which began rolling out on Monday 13^th February 2023.

New features within Microsoft Viva Engage

As Yammer evolves into Viva Engage, users can look forward to new features to help drive a better company culture:

Leadership Corner

Leadership Corner is a space for all leadership content across Viva Engage, encouraging connections between leaders and employees. Leadership corner is personalised for each employee based on the audiences they belong to and the leaders they choose to follow. Employees can engage in two-way dialogue with leaders too, sharing questions and ideas and getting involved in key business initiatives.

Campaigns

Bring people together through the new social ‘campaigns’ feature, which allows employee participation in initiatives that support business goals. This might include diversity initiatives, cultural moments, or shared learning. Much like on external social media channels, Campaigns are centered around a hashtag and employees are able to engage in the campaign by using the campaign hashtag.

Advanced Analytics

In the new world of hybrid working, it’s more important than ever for leaders to deeply understand the employee engagement across the organisation. Which is where the Viva Engage Advanced Analytics comes in.

It will include many new dashboards such as:

• Personal analytics — Understand the reach and engagement of your own posts and activity.
• Audience analytics — Understand the adoption of Viva Engage, as well as the top conversations and engagement trends that are going on within your organisation. Leaders can identify important topics where their input may be needed, as well as capture opinions across important topics.
• Campaign analytics — Understand the reach and engagement of the social campaigns.

There are also analytics for answers and sentiment. Which can both be used to improve that understanding of employee experience. Something which is crucial in the modern workplace.