Microsoft Yammer becomes Viva Engage next month

Microsoft is going all-in on VIva Engage as Yammer brand will disappear and become Viva Engage to better align with Microsoft Viva.

Microsoft is changing collaboration tool Yammer to Viva Engage to better align with Microsoft Viva, the company’s employee experience platform within Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams.

The Redmond-based IT giant last year launched Viva Engage, which it calls an “evolution” of the Yammer Communities app in Teams. Now all of Yammer will become Viva Engage and the Yammer brand will be retired, the company says.

This change begins next month, as Microsoft plans to add new features to Viva Engage designed to encourage leadership engagement, expression, events and knowledge discovery.

Starting next month, users will see updates to the community app for Outlook and mobile Yammer apps for iOS and Android. Outside of brand changes, there will be no changes in features, capabilities and investments for Microsoft 365 customers, but the company will continue to build new capabilities into the unified Viva Engage solution.

“We are excited about how this change will create a unified Viva Engage experience across web, mobile and other endpoints and bring consistency to Yammer and Viva users,” Seth Patton, general manager of Microsoft 365, wrote in a blog. “This evolution gives way to new Viva capabilities powered by Viva Engage and will streamline functions, resources, training, documentation and support for customers.”

The company will also begin rolling out new capabilities in Viva Engage initially announced in September 2022, including Leadership Corner, a new space for leaders to connect with employees, present resource groups, hold events and more. Leaders can track engagement through metrics that measure employee rights and guide discussions.

Leadership Corner also features AMA events to encourage further engagement. The feature is designed to modernize standard town hall experiences through upvoting, Q &A and other engaging discussion features.

Another new tool includes Answers in Microsoft Viva to help employees find answers from colleagues by bringing up similar questions that have been answered, recommended topics and experts, top solutions and more.

Microsoft is also adding new advanced analytics in Viva Engage to help organizations zoom into a variety of dashboards with dedicated metrics for personal analytics, audience analytics, campaign analytics and global responses.

For IT administrators, Microsoft is adding a new management center in Viva Engage, where administrators can complete tasks and assign roles and responsibilities to licensed Viva Suite users. All content management and other Yammer management policies remain the same, Microsoft added.

Source: mytechdecisions