Viva Engage (Yammer) and SharePoint are enterprise collaboration tools. They help you share documents and ideas. You can collaborate in real-time from anywhere. They allow you to post announcements and stay connected with colleagues and stakeholders. While each tool can be used independently, combining them offers significant efficiency and effectiveness benefits.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how integrating Yammer with SharePoint can elevate your productivity. It can also enhance collaboration. Additionally, it introduces Communication Insights, a powerful analytics platform to optimize internal communication.
ONE UNIFIED PLATFORM TO BOOST PRODUCTIVITY
One of the greatest benefits of collaboration tools is their ability to improve efficiency and effectiveness. By aligning Yammer and SharePoint, you unlock the full potential of both platforms. You will also enjoy the synergy of using them together. Before your organization can reap the rewards of this integration, it’s essential to implement and encourage adoption of both tools.
As discussed in a previous blog post, there are proven strategies to boost Yammer adoption. The key is ensuring your organization understands and values the benefits these tools bring. Even when used independently, Yammer and SharePoint optimize communication and streamline information flow within your organization.
To find strategies for overcoming common challenges on SharePoint, read our article “10 Tips to Overcome Communication Challenges on SharePoint.”
COMMUNICATE MORE EFFICIENTLY
Yammer is a platform centered on communication and discussion, whereas SharePoint is focused on document management. By integrating these tools, you get the best of both worlds.
Embedding Yammer into SharePoint, for example through the Yammer Embed feature, provides several advantages. It allows you to integrate group feeds, personal feeds, and open graph object feeds directly into your SharePoint site. This creates a unified platform for communication and document sharing.
Key Benefits of Yammer Integration:
- Instant Updates: Keep everyone informed with a single click. An embedded Yammer feed in SharePoint removes the need for separate communication channels. This saves time and ensures all stakeholders are updated simultaneously.
- Improved Collaboration: Announce updates, such as the publication of quarterly reports on SharePoint, directly on Yammer. Stakeholders can easily access the document and provide feedback in one centralized location.
- Streamlined Scheduling: Use Yammer polls within your SharePoint environment to quickly coordinate schedules and gather opinions.
- Want to learn how to identify the most engaging content on SharePoint? Dive into our guide How to Identify the Most Engaging Content in SharePoint.
By combining these tools, you save time and ensure that your messages are delivered more effectively to the right audience.
COLLABORATE MORE EFFECTIVELY
Miscommunication, duplicated efforts, and missed deadlines are common challenges in organizations. Integrating Yammer and SharePoint reduces these risks and fosters more effective collaboration.
Example:
Imagine working on a project with team members spread across different locations. In such cases, it’s challenging to coordinate and share updates seamlessly.
- Use SharePoint to host and edit project documents collaboratively.
- Simultaneously, use Yammer to discuss edits, share ideas, and provide feedback in real-time.
This approach ensures that everyone stays up-to-date, contributes to the document’s development, and avoids the confusion of multiple file versions. The result? A streamlined process that saves time and enhances team collaboration.
LEVERAGE COMMUNICATION INSIGHT TO BOOST PRODUCTIVITY
To truly maximize the potential of Yammer and SharePoint integration, use a tool like Communication Insights. It can transform how you measure and improve internal communication.
Communication Insights is a cross-channel analytics platform that helps internal communication professionals work more efficiently. It connects all communication channels, such as email newsletters, intranet/digital workplace, and enterprise social networks. This connection provides a centralized view of key performance indicators (KPIs).
Key Features of Communication Insight:
- Unified Analytics: Access KPIs for all your internal communication channels in one place, breaking down silos.
- Content Performance: Analyze the content that resonates most with your audience and measure how different channels impact one another.
- Campaign Insights: Evaluate campaign performance across channels, identify why some are more successful than others, and refine your strategy accordingly.
- Audience-Specific Metrics: Import your organizational structure to gain precise KPIs by audience type (country, department, role).
- Best Time to Post: Determine the optimal times to post on SharePoint or other channels to maximize employee engagement.
- Automated Reporting: Generate monthly, annual, or custom reports summarizing key data in PowerPoint format, ready to share with stakeholders.
- Inactive Content Identification: Highlight inactive documents and pages on SharePoint to improve content relevance.
- Advanced User Insights: Track the most active users on Yammer with filters like time period, country, or department.
For a detailed analysis of internal communications, explore our article. It covers key KPIs to track. Check out our article Top 5 Key Indicators to Analyze Your Internal Communication.
Communication Insights seamlessly integrates with tools like Viva Engage /Yammer, SharePoint, and email platforms. This integration eliminates the need to manually collect data from each channel. This comprehensive view allows companies to deeply analyze their intranet. They understand employee behaviors better. This leads to more targeted communication and improved productivity.
IMPROVE EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION
The examples above focus on internal collaboration. However, Yammer and SharePoint can enhance communication with external stakeholders. This adds even more value.
Example:
Consider a production company that relies on raw materials and sells products to retailers. If a supplier experiences delays, this information needs to flow quickly to all relevant parties.
- The supplier can notify your purchasing and production teams via Yammer, ensuring instant communication.
- At the same time, contracts stored in SharePoint can help your team. They can evaluate the impact of the delay using delivery schedules.
- With this information at hand, your team can promptly inform retailers about the situation and take proactive measures.
Combine Yammer’s real-time communication with SharePoint’s document management. You create a cohesive system this way. It keeps both internal and external networks informed and responsive.
Looking for practical examples of cross-channel communication strategies? Read our blog Tips to Master Cross-Channel Internal Communication.
Conclusion
The integration of Yammer and SharePoint offers numerous benefits:
- Increased Efficiency: Streamline internal communication and collaboration.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Reduce redundancies and improve project outcomes.
- Actionable Insights with Communication Insights: Gain a deeper understanding of your communication impact and refine your strategy with data-driven insights.
- Stronger External Relationships: Keep stakeholders informed and aligned.
Your organization can achieve higher productivity by leveraging the strengths of Yammer, SharePoint, and Communication Insights. This leads to better communication. It also promotes more effective teamwork. Embrace this synergy to transform how you work.
For further insights and real-world examples of Yammer and SharePoint integration, check out our post. Don’t miss Using Tryane Analytics and M365 for More Effective Internal Communication.