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Create a knowledge-based community in Yammer by using QnA Maker and Flow

Irene_Pasternack — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 22:09:54 GMT

This article provides steps to set up a Yammer group to provide automated answers to questions posted in the group. This solution integrates Yammer with Azure QnA Maker and Microsoft Flow, and uses SharePoint Online and Outlook features available to all Yammer Office 365 connected groups.

QnA Maker, a service that builds a question and answer service from your semi-structured content, is used to find relevant answers for user's natural language questions.
Flow provides the necessary workflow between QnA maker, the Yammer group, SharePoint Online, and Outlook to handle questions that don't already have answers defined and store new questions and answers.

Once you have this integration set up with a small list of questions and answers, users will be able to post questions in the group and receive automatic answers. If a user asks a question that doesn't have a clear match, the proposed answer is forwarded to a specific person to verify. Each verified answer is included as a response to the question, and also expands the knowledge base so it can be used for future questions.

After you get the integration working with the sample content provided, you can replace the sample content with relevant questions and answers for your organization.

For more ideas about how to use this integration to help with any situation where many people have similar questions such as new employee onboarding, self-help for IT problems, event planning, or communicating about organizational changes, see Crowdsourcing to Create a Knowledge Base in Yammer.

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription and an account with permissions to create resource groups and resources.
An Office 365 license: Business Essentials/Premium or Enterprise E1/E3/E5.
Office 365 connected groups enabled for your Yammer network.
A Yammer Office 365 connected group to use for the automated knowledge base. Because this group will be connected to QnA Maker, it should be a group dedicated to the knowledge base.

Step 1: Download files needed for this integration

This article has two associated flow packages and an Excel spreadsheet containing sample questions and answers.

Download the files from the Yammer technical community.
Double-click the Knowledge-based-community-files.ZIP file to unzip the files. You'll see the following files:

File	Description
SampleFAQs.xlsx	Sample questions to seed the automated knowledge base.
YammerFAQs.zip	Zip file containing a package for the flow that connects Yammer to QnAMaker.
AddItemToQNAMaker.zip	Zip file containing a package for the flow that connects the group's SharePoint list to QnAMaker.

Step 2: Use QnA Maker to create a knowledge base

In this step, you'll use the Microsoft Azure QnA Maker web service to create an instance of QnA Maker for your organization. If you want to read about QnA Maker before you get started, see What is QnA Maker?.

Open https://www.qnamaker.ai/Create, and sign in with your Azure account
Click Create a QnA service. This opens a new browser window to the Azure portal.

a. Enter a Name. For example: qna-maker-yammer.

b. Choose a Management pricing tier. F0 is enough for this sample.

c. Choose a Search pricing tier. F is enough for this sample.

d. If Name does not pass validation, update it.

e. Select values for the other fields and then click Create.

f. After the deployment finishes, go to the Resource group.

g. Open the Cognitive Services resource, and then click Keys.

h. Copy the value for KEY 1. This value will be used to initialize the Cognitive Services Key variable in the Yammer FAQs flow that will be imported and updated later.
Go back to the knowledge base create page that you opened.

a. Click refresh this page, and then choose the QnA service from your Azure directories and subscriptions.
In the Name field, enter a name for the kb. For example: Sample QnA FAQ
Populate the kb with a base source by clicking + Add file and uploading the SampleFAQs.xlsx file that you downloaded in Step 1.

Note:
If you don't customize the Sample FAQ to the language you want for your knowledge base then English will be used.
Click Create your kb.
Click Save and train.
Click PUBLISH.

a. Click Publish.

b. From the Success page, copy the three strings indicated in red rectangles below. You'll use these to initialize variables in the Yammer FAQs flow.
- Use the top one for the Knowledge Base Id variable.
- Use the middle one for the Knowledge Base Service Host variable.
- Use the bottom one for the Knowledge Base Endpoint Key variable and QnA Maker connection.

Step 3: Create a list of intitial questions and answers in the Yammer group's SharePoint site

In this step you'll create the structure for the list of questions and answers, and populate it with some sample questions and answers. Once you get the integration working with the sample, you can replace the content of the list with questions and answers that apply to your own content.

Open an Office 365 connected group in Yammer and click SharePoint Site.
Copy the site URL. You'll use this to configure the Create item node of the Yammer FAQs flow.

a. Create a new list named QnA. Click + New, and then click List.

b. In the Name textbox, enter QnA, and then click Create.
To rename the Title column to Question, click Title, click Column settings, and then click Rename.

a. In the Name textbox, enter Question, and then click Save.
To create a new column named Answer, click + Add column, and then click Multiple lines of text.

a. In the Name textbox, enter Answer, and then click Save.
In your new list, upload a few questions and answers. There is a sample set of questions and answers in the SampleFAQs.xlsx file in the download that you can use as you experiment with your integration.

Step 4: Update the flow that connects your Yammer group with QnA Maker

Open https://flow.microsoft.com, and sign in with your work account.
Upload the YammerFAQs.zip flow package that you downloaded in Step 1.

a. Click My flows.

b. Click Import.

c. Click Upload, then select the YammerFAQs.zip file you downloaded.
After the package has been uploaded, modify the IMPORT SETUP configuration for the Related resources.

a. In the QnA Maker resource, click Select during import.

b. Click + Create new.

c. Click + New connection, then search for QnA Maker.

d. Click the QnA Maker provided by Microsoft.

e. Paste the Knowledge Base Endpoint Key into the API Key box, then click Create.

f. Go back to the Import setup panel and click Refresh list.

g. The QnA Maker connection you just created will appear. Select it, then click Save.
Use the steps under step 4 above as a guide to configure the rest of the connections (shown in the red rectangles in the picture below). Refer to the screenshots below for all the connections to help you search for and locate the appropriate connections.

Yammer Connection

Approvals Connection

SharePoint Connection
At the bottom of the page, click Import.

a. After the flow has successfully imported, click Open flow.
Update the flow.

a. Click the first node, and choose the Yammer group you created or used earlier.

b. Use the values you collected earlier to initialize the variables:
- Knowledge Base
  - Id
  - Service Host
  - Endpoint Key
- Cognitive Services Key
  
  c. To initialize a variable's value, click an Initialize variable node, and then paste the value into the Valuebox.
  
  d. Initialize Approval Assigned To, and fill the value with your Office 365 work email.
  
  This sets you up as the official approver of suggested answers from the QnA Maker for your knowledge base. This is useful while you're building and testing your integration, and you can change it later to the person who will be responsible for verifying proposed answers.
  
  e. Find the Create item node and paste in the SharePoint Site URL. To find Create item:
  1. Click Check if the message is a question.
  2. Under the If yes condition, click Apply to each answer.
  3. Click Check the confidence level.
  4. In the If no section, click If Approved.
  5. In the If no section, click Create item.
  6. Paste the SharePoint Site URL in the Site Address text box.
  7. Click Save.

Step 5: Import and update the flow that adds items from Yammer to QNA Maker

To import AddItemToQnAMakerFlow.zip flow package that you downloaded in Step 1, use the same process you used to import the previous flow.

Note:

Instead of creating a new SharePoint Connection, you can select the one you created earlier.
Update the flow.

a. Click the first node, and paste the SharePoint Site URL into the Site Address text box.

a. Click the first node, and paste the SharePoint Site URL into the Site Address text box.
```
![SharePoint Connector showing the site address](../media/kb/flow-when-new-item-created.png)
```
b. Use the values you collected earlier to initialize Knowledge Base Id and Cognitive Services Key.
```
![Initialize Knowledge Base Id and Cognitive Services ID](../media/kb/flow-2-variables.png)
```
To save the flow, click Save.

Step 6: Try it! Ask sample questions in the Yammer group

Now that you have everything set up, you can ask some suggested sample questions in your Yammer group, and see how they are turned into official answers, using the sample content you put in SharePoint. You'll see what happens when QnA Maker identifies an answer, and when it isn't sure it has an answer.

Ask the following sample question in your Yammer group: Who is the target audience for the QnA Maker tool?

Wait up to two minutes for an answer.
Ask a question to the Yammer Group that is slightly different then what the knowledge base is expecting, such as: Please let me know is the QnA Maker cost-free?

a. The Cognitive Services will identify that this question is similar to one that it has an answer for, but it is not quite confident enough that it is correct, so it will trigger an email for approver verification.

b. The approver will then review the answer that the Cognitive Service wants to provide and then Approve it Outlook.

c. A new answer will then be provided in the Yammer conversation

d. The question asked will be added to the knowledge base by the flow so that the question can be answered quicker in the future.

Note:

If you ask the same question again, you will get the answer immediately.
Ask a question that is not in the knowledge base: Can we create a live event in a Yammer group?

a. Just like before, Cognitive Services will look for approval. In Outlook, reject the wrong answer, and input the correct answer in the comments box, then click Submit.

b. A new answer will be provided in the Yammer conversation.

c. The question asked will be added to the QnA list by the Yammer FAQs flow.

d. Finally, the newly added SharePoint list item will be added to the knowledge base by the Add Item to QnA Marker flow.

Note:

If you ask the same question again, you will get the answer immediately.

Step 7: Replace the sample content with your own

Now that you have the integration working with sample content, replace the sample content with appropriate content for your organization.

Thank you to Todd Baginski, Microsoft MVP, for developing this integration.

Identify sentiment of comments in a Yammer group by using Azure Cognitive Services and Flow

Irene_Pasternack — Wed, 03 Apr 2019 23:48:38 GMT

This article shows you how to set up a Yammer group to collect feedback and ideas for continued improvement, and have one person in your organization notified immediately when a specific sentiment, such as positive or negative feedback is posted. This solution uses Azure Cognitive Services to analyze the posted messages, and uses Microsoft Flow to connect Yammer, Azure Cognitive Services, SharePoint Online and Outlook.

Once you have this integration set up with examples of positive and negative feedback, an email will be sent to a designated person whenever a negative message is posted so that a response can be posted quickly. You can easily modify the integration to send email to track other types of opinions.

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription and an account with permissions to create Resource groups and other Azure resources.
An Office 365 license: Business Essentials/Premium or Enterprise E1/E3/E5.

Step 1: Download flow package needed for this integration

This article has an associated flow package that is stored in the file DetectSentiment.zip.

Download the DetectSentiment.zip file from the Yammer technical community.

File	Description
DetectSentiment.zip	Zip file containing a package for the flow that connects Yammer to Azure Cognitive Services.

Step 2: Create Yammer group

In this step, you create the Yammer group to post the messages to.

In a web browser, open https://www.yammer.com, and sign in with your organization account.
In Yammer, click + Create a group.
Click INTERNAL GROUP.
1. Enter a Group Name. For example: zzYammerGroup.
2. Enter Group Members.
3. Select Public Access.
Click Create Group.

The newly created group is added in the left navigation.

Step 3: Create a SharePoint list to store sentiment data

In this step, you create a SharePoint list to store the sentiment data that Azure Cognitive Services uses to determine what is negative feedback.

Click the button in the top left of the screen and select SharePoint.

Make sure you would have necessary permissions to create a SharePoint list in a SharePoint site.
Create a new list named SentimentAnalysis.
1. Click + New > List.
2. In the Name textbox, enter SentimentAnalysis, then click Create.
Create a new column named Score.
1. Click + Add column > Number.
2. In the Name textbox, enter Score, then click Save.
Create a new column named Message Link.
1. Click + Add column > Hyperlink.
2. In the Name textbox, enter Message Link, then click Save.
Copy and save the URL to the list you created, you will need it in subsequent steps.

Step 4: Create a Cognitive Service

Create a Cognitive Service to perform sentiment analysis for the messsages posted in the Yammer group.

In a web browser, open the Azure Portal.
Click + Create a resource, then enter Create a resource in the search box.
1. Select Cognitive Services.
2. Click the Create button.
Create a Cognitive Service
1. Enter a Name. For example: SentimentAnalysis
2. Select a Subscription.
3. Select a Location.
4. Select a Pricing tier For example: S0
5. Create a new Resource group.
6. Click the Create button.
  
  A new Cognitive Services instance is created.
Select the Cognitive Service you just created. You will find it in the new Resource group.
In the RESOURCE MANAGEMENT section, click Keys.
Copy and save the NAME and KEY values, you will need them in subsequent steps.
In the RESOURCE MANAGEMENT section, click Keys.
Copy and save the NAME and KEY values, you will need them in subsequent steps.

Step 5: Import and update the Yammer Sentiment Analysis flow

Use the Yammer Sentiment flow zip file you downloaded in Step 1 and update it to work in your environment.

In a web browser, open https://flow.microsoft.com, and sign in with your work account.
Upload the package.
1. Click My flows.
2. Click Import.
3. Click Upload, then select the DetectSentiment.zip file you downloaded.
After the package has been uploaded, modify the IMPORT SETUP configuration for the Related resources.
1. In the sentiment-analysis resource, click Select during import.
2. Click + Create new.
3. Click + New connection, then search for Text Analytics.
4. Click the Text Analytics connector provided by Microsoft.
Enter the KEY you saved in a previous step for the Account Key.
Enter the Endpoint you saved in a previous step for the Site URL.
Use the previous steps as a guide to configure the remaining connections (shown in the red rectangles in the picture below). Refer to the screenshots below for all the connections to help you search for and locate the appropriate connections.
1. SharePoint Connection
2. Office 365 Outlook Connection
3. Yammer Connection
Click Import at the bottom of the page.
After the flow has successfully imported, click Open flow.
Update the flow.
1. Click the first node in the flow.
2. In the Group Id dropdown list, select the Yammer group you created earlier, then select the correct network.
3. Click the Create item node.
In the Site address dropdown list, select the SharePoint site where you created the SharePoint list.
In the List name dropdown list, select the Sharepoint SentimentAnalysis list you created.
1. Detect if this is negative or positive comment from Yammer group.
2. Configure the email information.
3. In the To textbox, enter the email address where you would like notifications to be sent when the sentiment value indicates the message posted in Yammer is negative.
4. In the Subject textbox, enter the subject you would like the email to have.
Click Save.

Step 6: Post messages in the Yammer group to trigger the sentiment analysis flow

Post message in Yammer discussion group to trigger the Yammmer Sentiment Analysis flow.

In a web browser, open https://www.yammer.com, and sign in with your organization account. Find and open the Yammer group you created earlier.
Post positive and negative messages to the group.

Negative message example: I am very frustrated by our lack of healthy eating options in the cafeteria. What can we do to improve this?

Positive message example: I'm really loving our focus on empowering all employees to achieve more. So proud to work for the amazing company!

Both the positive and negative messages are added to the SharePoint list you created.

If you posted a negative message, an email is sent to the Inbox you configured.

Please note that it takes a few minutes for the flow to execute after the messages are posted to Yammer.

Thank you to Todd Baginski, Microsoft MVP, and Chris Bortlik for developing this integration.

Starting August 28th, security improvements might impact users running the Yammer desktop app on Windows 7 64 bit running EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit).

Michael Holste — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 22:30:12 GMT

Starting August 28th, security improvements might impact users running the Yammer desktop app on Windows 7 64 bit running EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit).

NOTE: There is no impact to users running other versions of Windows, or running Windows 7 64 bit without EMET. [How does this affect me?] For users running Windows 7 64 bit and EMET, the Yammer desktop may not launch.

What action do you need to take?

To work around this, admins can do one of the following: ·

Remove Yammer.exe from the list of applications monitored by EMET.
Disable the caller mitigation setting and EAF+ for Yammer.exe.

Sentiment analysis file

Irene_Pasternack — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 01:46:31 GMT

This download contains a zip file with the flow needed to connect Azure Cognitive Services to Yammer to implement sentiment analysis for a Yammer group.

Instructions for this download can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/yammer/integrate-with-other-applications/sentiment-analysis-flow-azure

File:

- DetectSentiment.zip: Flow file. Note that this zip file does not need to be unzipped.

- YammerFAQs.zip: Flow files

- SampleFAQs.xls: Sample questions and answers

Knowledge-based community files

Irene_Pasternack — Wed, 09 Jan 2019 01:57:42 GMT

This download contains the files needed to implement the knowledge-based community integration of Yammer, Flow, and QnA Maker.

Instructions for this download can be found at https://docs.microsoft.com/yammer/integrate-with-other-applications/knowledge-base-community-flow-qna-maker.

Contents of Knowledge-based-community-files.zip:

- AddItemToQnAMaker.zip: Flow files

- YammerFAQs.zip: Flow files

- SampleFAQs.xls: Sample questions and answers

Using OBS Studio to produce a live event in Yammer

Michael Holste — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 22:52:29 GMT

When you’re ready to produce a live event in Yammer using the OBS Studio external encoder, follow step 3 in Organize a live event in Yammer. When you get to the fifth step in that section and are ready to connect OBS Studio, follow the steps below.

Open OBS Studio.

2. In OBS Studio, click Settings.

3. In the left column, click Stream.

4. In the URL input box, paste the Server Ingest URL you copied from Teams.

5. Enter a Stream key, for example, you could enter 123456.

6. Click OK.

7. Add scenes and sources, and then click Start Streaming.

8.When the event is ready to go live, go back to Teams, and continue with the sixth step in Step 3: Produce the event in Teams or Stream.

Can I decide whether to share videos with specific people or my entire organization?

Amit Rajput — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 06:40:42 GMT

Question

What if I want only people in my department and not my entire company to see the video...can I do that?

Answer

Yes. You can share videos within your entire organization or set specific permissions based on a Security Group or a specific set of people using the ?Shared with? setting that is available during upload or edit. Learn more about setting permissions here.

Will Microsoft Stream work on mobile devices?

Amit Rajput — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 06:40:35 GMT

Question

Can I use it on my mobile phone and tablets?

Answer

At preview, Stream will be available on mobile browsers with full functionality across all platforms (iOS, Android, Windows Phone). If you wish to see an mobile application in the future, please vote for this in our ideas section (you can vote for more than one):

1. Vote for iPhone App

2. Vote for Android App

Who is Microsoft Stream intended for?

Amit Rajput — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 06:40:27 GMT

Question

Who is Microsoft Stream intended for?

Answer

Microsoft Stream is the video management and sharing service for employees across businesses of all sizes who are interested in using videos in the workplace to connect, collaborate, learn and share information. Anyone can search for videos easily and consume them on their devices, whenever and wherever they want to.

What is Microsoft Stream?

Amit Rajput — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 06:40:16 GMT

Question

So what exacly is Microsoft Stream and can I use it from anywhere in the world?

Answer

Microsoft Stream is a cloud video service that provides a secure and easy way for employees at organizations of all sizes to upload, watch, share, organize and discover all videos within their organization from a single portal. Today, Microsoft Stream is available in preview globally and is free for anyone with a work email address to sign up.