Yammer is an important channel for company-wide engagement for us, and we've had good success with adoption and buy-in over the last 2 years. We pinned the Communities app in Teams 2 years ago for all 30k+ of our employees and encouraged use of Yammer within Teams, and we saw steady growth and engagement from the "top floor to the shop floor." After the name and icon change in Teams, many of our people simply got lost (wayfinding) because they didn't see the familiar name/icon in Teams, and the communities and unread count badges are "hidden" on the right side in Engage. I've had multiple leaders go to use Yammer in Teams, and they reach out to me saying "it disappeared in Teams for me" and when I tell them it's now called Viva Engage, they ask "is this Yammer or a new thing?" Please don't force us to waste cycles explaining this.
I am an enthusiastic fan of the direction of Storyline and Stories, and I'm looking forward to driving adoption... though the two-name thing makes it difficult to communicate without creating confusion. Trying to form a business case to our leaders why to invest in premium features is problematic when we can't explain Yammer vs. Engage.
- Please allow us to choose one name and icon across endpoints (Teams, browser, SharePoint web parts and mobile app). At least give us the option to pick one or the other and choose the timing of deployment so that we can manage/communicate the change. If you can't give us the option, than please pick one name/icon quickly so we can communicate and move forward with clarity.
- Please unify basic experiences across endpoints. The UI differences across Teams, browser and mobile app are pretty frustrating when you think about training and wayfinding. Example: list of communities on left rail in browser and hidden in right rail on Teams.
- Please make the experience feel more native in the Teams UI. We want to reduce complexity of explaining all the tools, and saying that Yammer/Engage is just another part of Teams makes sense... except the Engage UI actually feels less native with the Communities list on the right rail in contrast to Teams channels list on the left.
Thanks for listening and considering our feedback!