Microsoft Teams vs. Yammer for Collaboration

This article will explore two of Microsoft 365’s applications, Teams and Yammer, to see which one is a better choice for professional collaborations.

What is Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration platform that was designed to help individuals connect to one another, as well as to facilitate group meetings and exchanges. Teams provides users with options for collaborating with voice, video, chat windows, and file sharing. Since its launch in 2016, Teams has been regularly updated to provide improved collaboration options. In 2020 and 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Teams was updated on a weekly or even daily basis so that its 250 million users around the globe would have a reliable platform to conduct virtual meetings, classes, and other professional or academic endeavors.

Using Teams for Collaboration

Microsoft Teams provides an array of helpful features for collaboration:

• Teams provides channels where one person can connect with just one other person, or 10,000 people can connect remotely. Many different channels options are available. Some channels are standard, which means that they are public and are available to anyone who wants to join. Others are private channels that deal with a specific topic or activity. Private channel owners are in charge of admitting new users.
• Teams is a great platform for both large and small meetings. It provides a way for up to 250 people to video conference.
• Those who were not able to attend a meeting or event on Teams can still access the content at a later time, thanks to this app’s ability to store transcriptions, files, and chats from the meeting. 
• Teams uses automation to help provide users with quick solutions. This app’s T-Bot is there to answer questions about Teams, and Polly Bot can be used to make polls that can provide automated feedback.
• One of the lesser-known Teams features is that users can place outgoing calls on this app. 
• Teams provides users with two options for chatting: group chats, as well as one-on-one chats. To help Teams users stay engaged, emojis and priority flagging are available. Chat windows can also be used to share links or files during meetings.

In addition to the above-mentioned collaboration features, Teams also provides a variety of integration possibilities with both Microsoft 365 products as well as third-party providers. Teams now integrates with Zendesk, CalendarHero, Asana, and others. It can also seamlessly integrate with Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word, and connect with Outlook for calendaring purposes.

What is Microsoft Yammer?

Microsoft Yammer is a social networking and collaboration application intended to be used by those who work within an organization. Often referred to as Facebook for business, Yammer provides users with many of the same features as other social networking apps. Groups are available that focus on specific company topics and provide Yammer users with a way to ask questions or provide feedback. This app’s instant messenger offers employees a way to directly communicate with one another. In addition, the news feed showcases recent posts from coworkers across departments.

Using Microsoft Yammer for Collaboration

Yammer includes a variety of helpful tools and features that were designed to facilitate collaboration across organizations:

• By using @mentions, Yammer users can include other coworkers in a conversation.
• It’s possible to create polls in Yammer to gauge feedback from employees across departments at an organization.
• Yammer provides a convenient and easy way for employees to exchange ideas with others within the organization whom they may not otherwise interact with. For example, questions can be posed by a Data Analyst and answered by a Software Engineer working in a different branch. This provides a helpful tool for brainstorming on projects or creating team presentations.
• For employees who have a work-related question, it often takes time to receive an answer. In certain instances, the employee may not even know where to direct the question. Yammer makes it easy to ask questions and receive immediate answers by using the Yammer group. Typically, department heads monitor group conversations and are able to offer fast responses to questions.
• When an employee accomplishes something noteworthy, Yammer provides a way to share their accomplishments with all employees. Not only does this help build camaraderie among employees, but it also helps employees know that their accomplishment is being celebrated.

In addition to the collaboration possibilities listed above, Yammer works with Microsoft 365 apps, as well as third-party platforms. Since Yammer integrates with Office 365 Groups (which integrates with Outlook), it is also able to integrate with apps like Teams and SharePoint. It also can be used alongside Slack, Hype, Open API, and Hootsuite, among others.

Which Platform is Right for Your Professional Collaboration Needs?

Teams and Yammer provide many effective collaboration tools and capabilities. Both of these applications provide users with multi-platform support on iOS and Android. Both are used for internal communication purposes within both small and large organizations. In addition, Teams and Yammer use serial ordering to group conversations, which keeps the context of a conversation intact. They also both allow tagging, which helps with searching.

However, there are a few key differences to consider when deciding which of these applications is best for your professional collaboration needs:

• Teams provides more integration options than Yammer. In addition to the number of integrations Teams has available, the ones it offers provide a wider range of functionality than Yammer’s. The applications Yammer facilitates aren’t intended to manage tasks and workflows as much as they are there to distribute content and propel employee engagement.
• Teams is more helpful for frequent exchanges. When a message is sent in Teams, a notification is given to the recipient in just seconds. This makes Teams the preferred platform for pressing matters, as well as those that require immediate action. Yammer correspondences can span days or weeks.
• Yammer is more inclusive. In addition to allowing more people to join conversations, those who connect via Yammer don’t necessarily need to be invited into the discussion. Public Yammer groups are easily accessible by anyone who is in a company’s network. On the other hand, most channels in Teams are intended for a select audience.
• Yammer can facilitate larger collaborations than Teams. Although Teams allows up to 10,000 people to join a discussion, Yammer permits an unlimited number of users to join a group. This means that entire companies can use Yammer for collaboration purposes. 
• Teams and Yammer have different scopes. While messages sent via Teams are typically addressed to just one person or a handful of people, Yammer provides a more robust platform that is useful for collecting opinions or sharing news.
• Teams provides a more private platform. Groups and conversations in Teams are kept private as a default setting. Yammer, however, is an open platform, which means that messages can be seen by every user within the organization unless the group was specifically designated as private by administrators.

Ultimately, Yammer is the preferred application for organizations that wish to democratize their communications and include as many employees as possible in the conversation, whereas Teams remains the favored platform in communications that extend to a broader audience.

Get Started Learning Microsoft 365 with Hands-On Classes

Knowing how to use Microsoft Office’s many applications can open professional doors across industries, as well as lead to upward career mobility. A great way to begin learning about Microsoft Office is to sign up for one of Noble Desktop’s Microsoft Office courses. These small group classes are offered in-person in Manhattan, as well as in the live online format, in topics such as Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint. 

For students and professionals on the go, there are also in-person and live online Microsoft Office courses available through Noble Desktop or one of its affiliate schools. A variety of course options are offered, ranging in duration from three hours to three days and costing between $229 and $1,785. You can also browse in-person Microsoft Office classes in a city near you to find study options near home.