Why has this support site moved away from Yammer?

[#1]

I don't think we can cross-post or at least I don't know how to do it...anyway I agree It could be great to have cross-posting functionality...you migh submit this as an idea/request for the new Office 365 network

[#2]

It's a shame that I can't see the conversation/post that you're replying to, that would give some context!

[#3]

Totally agree...as I have say many times here, usability in this new network needs to be dramatically improved

[#4]

This is something we are working on.

[#5]

I have a feature request for this network:

[#6]

My apologies. Slack is a private company. The article I referenced was from the CEO of Jive. I corrected my post (editing posts is nice!) Thanks for correcting me. :)

[#7]

Re: translate/lanugage support. Yes- this priority that we're working on. 

[#8]

Hello @Sigurd Skauvik and welcome! To get started in this community take a look at this guide. 

For trainings for Yammer, I would recommend taking a look at these resources, as well as exploring the Yammer group in this community. Please reach out if you have questions!

[#9]

We can not cross-post, however we can move posts or entire conversations into a new group. 

We'll use this feature if someone posts in the wrong area, or if we need to create a new groups because there is a high volume of posts on a certain topic. (ie, in the SharePoint group there is a lot of posts with the label or tag of "hybrid seach" we could create a new Hybrid Search group and populate it with all of the existing posts on this topic). 

[#10]

But cross-posting functionality would be great and it's something that is available in modern collaboration platforms such as Yammer or LinkedIn

[#11]

I think this new Network can become a true winner especially when it is indexed as searches will include the answer. many people are looking for.

But i miss the nice overview of Yammer itpronetwork where i have a overview of unread articles would be nice is something like this would be added.

great work team!

KR,

Paul Keijzers

[#12]

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[#13]

In Yammer this post wold have been translated for me

[#14]

You know where to send that feedback :)

[#15]

As someone who tends to read through whole threads on forums or communities before responding (no point in repeating questions or solutions ... my time is precious and I don't want to waste the time of others who have to pass through any unnecessary posts), I get to the end of a thread but then have to go back to the top to reply? I know I can reply to any post on the way through but I might not want to respond to someone else, only respond to the OP.

I'm always happy to move from one system to another (the important thing is the community and the contribution it makes) but some core functions do need to be kept. Is there a reason why being able to reply to the OP at any point in the thread is not here? Or is it just not where I am looking?

Is there a breakdown inteh differences in functionality (as the end user expereinces) that we could look at? It will help when trying to explain to colleagues why the shift has happened and why they need to use a different tool to connect to the wider community.

[#16]

Hi Dean, I'm reminded of the mantra. "A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it's not that good". :)

[#17]

I get the point of this site being searchable etc, but the general Yammer chats were easier to follow. New discussions are easier to find in Yammer. Also the email alerts etc seem to be better in the Yammer network. Next to the community being larger ( I'm sure this will change over time).

In short it just feel like we're going back to the good old forums that I used to use for SharePoint. I guess this is still all preview therefore things are likely to change rapidly. I'm looking forward to some improvements.

[#18]

I echo what Tony Sheppard has said. You need to be able to reply in the context of the conversation. You shouldn't be taken away from the original message in order to reply. Technology is not our barrier here - software can be made to do anything - so why not expand the reply on-screen within the context of the other posts. Yes, there is a Quick Reply, so then why have two mechanisms to do the same.

I assume that the threading is currently broken, as all posts are not sequential, just chronological. If I wanted chronology I can use email. Oh, that's becoming tempting ;)

[#19]

And if we could respond directly to messages from a client too, instead of having to come onto a web site ...

We could structure it with things like microsoft.network.o365.news ... and ...

Oh ... I guess things have moved on since then. ;)

I am looking forward to the move, but also looking forward to keeping some essentials.

[#20]

You can copy a url from one thread into another, which is pretty much what happens in Yammer.
Threads with a one-to-many relationship to forums is not a feature either discussion platform supports, unfortunately, leading to separate discussions occuring on the same platform about the same subject, and all the concomitant 'Apologies for cross-posting' messages...

[#21]

Done!

[#22]

I assume that the threading is currently broken, as all posts are not sequential, just chronological.

We are working on improving the threading to increase readability. Agreed it is frustrating. 

[#23]

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@Naomi Moneypenny wrote:
So becoming HIPAA compliant, having EU Model Clauses, integrating Office 365 login across services, searchability of links in Delve and so many other things count as minor tweaks? I think not...

Too many folks see UI as only improvements, when the secret sauce is in fact integrating conversation into where you work, but you must first do all the infrastructure to make that a reality.

---

Naomi, I am so glad our company has Yammer, and we use it a lot, but to me, they have NOT integrated Yammer to "where you work". It is kludgey at best to integrate with Sharepoint as a WebPart embed, it is not useful for document commenting or review (I think they had that for a while but took it away?) and instead of having it as a key part of their new Group construct, they made the primary messaging of Groups be email (mailing list).  The user profiles are seperate and not synchronized. If I post a document from my own O365 tentant, it cannot render a preview because Yammer and Sharepoint are somehow seperate. When you click on the Yammer button from Sharepoint, you leave Sharepoint to a different domain and UI (yammer.com)

 I know compliance is a big issue, and that is great for some folks, but I agree with the other poster that not much has been done and it is not clear where they are going with Yammer. BTW, what is "searchability of links in Delve"

Thanks,
Rob.

[#24]

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@Naomi Moneypenny wrote:
So becoming HIPAA compliant, having EU Model Clauses, integrating Office 365 login across services, searchability of links in Delve and so many other things count as minor tweaks? I think not...

Too many folks see UI as only improvements, when the secret sauce is in fact integrating conversation into where you work, but you must first do all the infrastructure to make that a reality.

---

[#25]

Naomi, I am so glad our company has Yammer, and we use it a lot, but to me, they have NOT integrated Yammer to "where you work". It is kludgey at best to integrate with Sharepoint as a WebPart embed, it is not useful for document commenting or review (I think they had that for a while but took it away?) and instead of having it as a key part of their new Group construct, they made the primary messaging of Groups be email (mailing list).  The user profiles are seperate and not synchronized. If I post a document from my own O365 tentant, it cannot render a preview because Yammer and Sharepoint are somehow seperate. When you click on the Yammer button from Sharepoint, you leave Sharepoint to a different domain and UI (yammer.com)

[#26]

 I know compliance is a big issue, and that is great for some folks, but I agree with the other poster that not much has been done and it is not clear where they are going with Yammer. BTW, what is "searchability of links in Delve"

[#27]

Thanks,
Rob.

[#28]

As a role model for a highly usable, high volume, I suggest Digital Photography Review (DPreview.com). See https://www.dpreview.com/forums/1021 as an example.  Usability features I like:

• Condensed listings (very little wasted space vertically)
• Threaded listing vs Flat display of posts (easiliy toggled)
• Last post date/time in thread list, Up votes displayed in thread view, 
• Dark and Light themes
• Strong profiles, tagging, Private Messaging
• Clear replying and easy quoting
• alerts on threads
• blocking users
• strong moderation of clearly defined communities

I know there is no point in talking about the Yammer community going away, so I hope providing examples of good forums and identifying the usability features, you will get some good ideas.  Not sure why I am posting this in the Yammer forum, but there is no "meta" discussion area.

I think the O365 Network (Yammer) has/had a lot of power users. I think a key is going to make a community that works for both the newbies and power users. I think DPreview does that well.

Good luck with this, I hope for some fast evolution!!

Rob.

[#29]

Actually there is, its just too tucked away at the moment :(

Discussion:  https://network.office.com/t5/Discussion/bd-p/CommunityQuestions

Actual Ideas: https://network.office.com/t5/Ideas/idb-p/Community-Feedback

[#30]

Cheers Brent, I was just coming to post that :)

@Rob I'll reply later on the other points :)

[#31]

We would all like to get to there faster, but I can see how the work done by the Yammer team is putting them on the right track for these features. To make many of the scearios your highlight work Yammer needs to be using the same users accounts as Office 365. For example Yammer would need permissions as you to render a preview of a document stored in your OneDrive, embedding with different credentials is unreliably complicated etc. Unfortunatey this change will disrupt existing customers (like us included) so it's necessary to give us fair warning that we need to make changes, that happened last December and we get a year to plan the change. Before they could start allowing the use of Office 365 credentials the Yammer platform needed to become more trusted, this needed the datacenter move and no doubt a lot of effort. So, by the end of December everyone will be on the new authentication platform, so Yammer can then deliver features that will rely on that (in the meantime there will perhaps be some new features that only apply to tenants with enforced identites). I wonder if perhaps the ultimate effort wasn't fully anticipated when MS acquired Yammer, and that why they. skipped purchasing Slack for fear of the same effort. We're moving our 85,000 users to the new authentication in about 2 weeks, fingers crossed.

[#32]

@steven -- thanks for your perspective, and you understand more behind the scenes than I do. I can only express what I wanted to get out of O365, and honestly, the acquisition of Yammer is one of the big reasons we went with O365 a few years ago. I remain hopeful and appreciate Microsoft's new energy and approach (despite my frustration at slow progress with Yammer).

[#33]

Love the CAPITAL letters part of the post @Naomi Moneypenny :)

[#34]

That's a much better user interface, hopefully the network can evolve to be something like that!

[#35]

I get why the change was made to make this available to more users without the administrative challenges of an invite-only scenario. However, this UI makes no sense to me, and the change communication for this new platform is weak (unless it hasn't happened yet, and that's what is meant by "preview").

I have to think that "Yammer Bugs" is one of the most engaged groups in the Office 365 Network, but I see nothing like that here. If those posts are going to be housed in one big "Yammer" group, expect that any other posts will be pushed down whenever there's a major bug.

There's also too much clicking and scrolling compared to Yammer... and everything is blue.

[#36]

Naomi....Thank you for taking the time to write this. It helps me understand this shift a little better.

I thought you may want to edit one section though....

"But even seeing folks like CVP SharePoint and OneDrive, Jeff Teper, answering questions live and authentically from real users at Office 365 community events on Saturdays, is incredibly demonstration of the power of customer led innovation and willingness to dialog." It appears you meant "...is an incredible...." in lieu of "...is incredibly demonstration..."

[#37]

I, like you, wish this weren't happening.  Alas.......just a big "sigh" from me.

[#38]

Thanks Dennis - swatted that one! Typo queen status regained unfortunately... :)

Also thanks @Boris Kapitanovic yes, some people didn't like the shouting but I also thought it was necessary :)

Posted a longer follow up and perspectives also (let me know if you spot anything there!) - most valuable part is the comments from folks though - really great to hear your thoughts.

Office 365 Network: What We Have Here is A Failure to Communicate

[#39]

It is really HARD to find MY CONVERSATIONS in this platform. Miss Inbox and/or Profile having a list of my convos. How do I know if people replied to my comment? This feels a lot like an old-style BBS with prettier branding. :\

[#40]

@Naomi Moneypenny - great follow up post, i like how you decomposed the issues, thanks for sharing your views!

[#41]

Hey Diane, you can do this in a number of places. 

1. Click on your avatar in the top right (should open a slideout). Click on the notification bell to see all of your latest notifications.
2. Click on your name to get to your Profile page. Scroll down to 'Activity & Notifications" to find them. 

Hope that helps! 

[#42]

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@Diane Kennedy wrote:
It is really HARD to find MY CONVERSATIONS in this platform. Miss Inbox and/or Profile having a list of my convos. How do I know if people replied to my comment? This feels a lot like an old-style BBS with prettier branding. :\

---

This is really great feedback and put very simply.  I know @Michael Holste gave you the technical answer of how to do this, but I think as a general theme this is such a critical aspect of interaction in our community.  Was just meeting with my team and discussing this exact statement, making sure it is easy to continue a conversation, go further with a conversation, not just a one hit wonder "found my answer, moving on".  Thanks for this.

[#43]

And a good mantra that is.......learn it, love it, live it

[#44]

Christopher,

I do not disagree with you with the following question.  I am sincerely curious ....

How does this network give you more accessibility than Yammer?

Dennis

[#45]

"The other thing I would recommend working on is your use of badges. Badges for the hell of it (like putting a profile photo us) are not legitimate incentives and can be seen as condescending. Each badge/reward needs to link to a specific intrinsic user motivator... at the moment there are too obviously skewed to your interests rather than the end users (this is gamification 101 guys)."

Agreed with this statement Scott. The "badges" and things like that are somewhat annoying to me.

[#46]

This site isn't as great as MS wants to think it is. What I get from this is that instead of investing in Yammer, MS is instead choosing to move away from Yammer. Perchance a message we should take w/ some weight. CC: @Antoine Snow

[#47]

You would also think that they would take some basic functionality into account. Like hyperlinks within the new posts.

[#48]

The strategy of having one collaborative platform for enterprise collaboration and another for public collaboration seems to me to be flawed? People just want one tool to collaborate, which is what made email so successful. 

It would have been better to take the best of breed collaboration tool, ie Yammer, and add support for public collaboration in those networks that need it. Then you'd have a killer tool.

I'm trying to keep an open mind with this new platform, but it's already irrating me with basic problems:

• I have to re-login it, each time I come back to the site
• It doesn't hide messages I've already read, which means coversations are sorted back to front and I have to page to get to the most recent and most relevant messages, and risk missing them.
• It seems to be optimized for mobile devices, which means it is de-optmized for desktops. Better to optimize for desktops and use an app on mobile devices.
• Notifications don't seem to work, nothing is brought to my attention?
• ...

[#49]

Funny how things work.  I guess I am now glad this group of IT Pros moved from Yammer to Network.Office.com. Otherwise I would have lost contact with a lot of great people.

Why? Well you were used to seeing me post at Dennis.Wilson@MapleMount.org.  As it turns out, I found out today my "skillset no longer meets the need of the organization."  So, I am self-employed full time once again.

So I no longer have access to my old profile....except I did get in long enough to add "Old Profile" to my profile.

It will take me a while to build this profile but I will get it built as quickly as I can.

Dennis Wilson, Head Computer Guy

The Computer Guys LLC.com

PS I have no access to my old Yammer Profile so cannot answer queries.

[#50]

Welcome back, @Dennis Wilson.  :)  Wouldn't want to leave you behind. 

[#51]

Thanks Tom.

Funny thing is, I had just last week logged into Yammer and Network.Office.com, one on each screen to find the names of those I had been following in Yammer.  I didn't want to lose them once the Yammer IT Pro Network went dark.  All that work for naught!

It sure would be great if there were a way to gain access to my old account so I can find all the really great contributors I used to follow.  But, I guess I'll just have to rebuild it over time as I see names I recognize and then "follow" them. 

[#52]

Hey Dennis, I just sent you an email to help with the follow question.

[#53]

Thank you so very much Lana.  

That list was marvelous and all that have made the transition to Network.Office.com have been "followed" now.  

I was quite surprised how many I was following in Yammer that have not transitioned to here.

Of the 80,000 members to the Yammer IT Pro Network, how many have made the move?

[#54]

Make a polite guess ;)