We recently announced the rebranding of Yammer to Viva Engage and based on many conversations with our customers we want to give you the tools and resources to help prepare for the upcoming changes. In the rebranding kit, we have collected ideas, templates, logos and more for you to repurpose for your own needs and employees.
<Download the rebrand kit here>
Prepare with your stakeholders
Keep the stakeholders up to date on the changes by sharing the most recent announcements and blog posts. Use this as an opportunity to:
- review governance and update your usage policy.
- identify areas in Yammer where you may need to adjust and edit the info boxes, community cover photos or icons (example: a Yammer 101 Community may need to be renamed to a Viva Engage 101 Community).
Note: You can leverage sample resources including logos and other brand assets included in this rebrand kit. This includes a cover photo template that you can use to create new cover photos.
Outline a communication plan with your stakeholders to determine key messages and channels. The rebrand kit includes a sample plan with prompts for you to determine the channels, key messages, and timeline. The kit also includes an email template and Viva Engage announcement copy you can leverage. Be sure to update internal resources such as intranet pages that currently include the Yammer name.
Assess your current network
Before you get too far into the rebranding changes and communication to employees, take a step back and see if there is an opportunity to assess your current network. How could your organization use this moment as an opportunity to re-energize your network? Are there any upcoming internal moments/initiatives that would align with this change?
Many customers have capitalized on the rebrand to further support their community adoption efforts. For example, have you determined how to use All Company as a corporate communication channel? Or have you created a process or program around Official Communities today? Melanie Hohertz has written some great advice and best practices for making the most out of the exis... to maximize reach and engagement before any changes take place.
Additionally, you can choose to share your favorite success stories to reinforce how Viva Engage is benefiting the organization. Ask your champions for their success stories and see what could be included.
Involve your champions
Start a conversation with your champions about the rebranding of Yammer and what channels and resources they might want to consider renaming. Involve them by brainstorming a campaign to kick off broader conversation with employees. At Microsoft, we used #YammerisEngaged as an internal campaign for employees to share and highlight how Viva Engage has helped them feel connected over the years. Employee responses have taken us down memory lane while reminding us of the power of connection beyond geography and departmental silos.
When key messaging is posted, encourage your champions and admins to help amplify and share to their communities. Have people share their favorite Viva Engage tips and tricks, using real examples and scenarios when possible.
If you need help starting a champion community, watch this video about Activating your Champion Program.
Inform your leaders
If you have leaders using Yammer today, encourage them to update or re-install their mobile apps to see the changes reflected. If leaders aren’t currently active, this may be an opportunity to start a conversation about engaging their employees in two-way dialog. By connecting leaders and employees to openly share, problem solve, and contribute across boundaries, Viva Engage empowers people and teams to be their best, have a voice, and feel included in the workplace.
Additionally, if they haven’t already set up delegates, use it as an opportunity to determine delegate access for posting.
Let your employees know
Communicate the upcoming changes with your employees and share key messages.
Here’s a sample message...
Yammer has been powering community experiences in Microsoft for over a decade. In that time, we’ve seen our use of Yammer influence company culture, bring employees together during times of trial, and accelerate knowledge sharing across departments. In short, Yammer is part of our strategy to help empower employees and impact change within our organization.
Last year, Microsoft took the first step to rebrand the Yammer Communities app for Teams into Viva Engage to align more closely with the Microsoft Viva suite that focuses on employee experience. Throughout 2023, Yammer will be rebranded to Viva Engage. This change will deliver an integrated experience and a single Viva Engage platform—wherever you choose to engage. The Yammer Communities App in Teams, Communities app for Outlook and Yammer mobile apps for iOS and Android will be rebranded to Viva Engage. Over the next year, all of Yammer will become Viva Engage. All the capabilities you enjoy today will continue to be available to you, just under a new name, Viva Engage. Like all rebrands, this shift will take time and occur over the coming months.
Throughout this change, you can expect a familiar experience. All the existing functionality you love, along with the latest features will remain the same. Small actions will be needed to update and communicate this change to everyone.
We’ll share updates along the way to keep you informed.
<Business leaders/owners of Yammer>
We hope that this blog post and rebranding kit starts the conversation with your organization and empowers you to inform your employees of the upcoming changes to Yammer.
Resources:
- Download Rebranding kit (Includes logos, email template, editable cover photo templates, communication plans).
- Join us for upcoming Office Hours to ask questions and get advice from other customers (Register here EMEA or APAC).
- Track upcoming progress on Viva Engage existing and new capabilities M365 Roadmap
- Follow the Microsoft Viva Blog for more updates and announcements
- Check out more Viva Engage Adoption Resources
ICYMI –Viva Engage FAQ from the AMA Highlights
We hosted a Microsoft Viva Engage Ask Me Anything event and had over 80+ questions asked and answered. We were very busy responding to many of the questions -- we pulled together some of the most commonly asked questions and grouped them together. And if you still have questions? Check out our resources including our rebranding kit on the Adoption Resources Site or post a comment below.
Viva Engage: Web
Q: How long will the redirect of old yammer URL to the new ones last?
We will work out a URL redirection schema for Yammer.com URLs when we rebrand to Viva Engage to make sure the Yammer links will work as expected in Viva Engage, so you don't need to worry about updating your links when we rebrand.
Q: Does Microsoft have any materials created for socializing this change to our colleagues? Any talking points or decks we can use?
A: We just published a rebrand kit! The Viva Engage Adoption Center has resources for you to use https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/engage/.
Q: How is the transfer from Yammer to Viva Engage going to happen? What is the experience for organizations that aren't using Teams?
A: From a mobile perspective, the Yammer app will update sometime in April through the respective app stores. The update to the mobile apps will happen just as any app gets its updates. Users will be responsible for updating their own apps. For the web, we don't anticipate dramatic changes, mostly cosmetic. We'll have more that we can share as we get closer to making the web updates which will be more in the September/October timeframe.
Viva Engage: Outlook
Q: Will you support interactive email notifications on desktop Outlook for Mac and Windows? Currently, you need to access Outlook on the web to get that level of full interactivity, especially when posting videos or link to videos.
A: The feature parity between different Outlook platforms is an area we're explicitly working on right now. Our vision is for all Outlook users in Windows and Mac to have the same experience between desktop, Outlook on the Web, and mobile. In terms of videos and links, we're especially looking at how we can embed the content in emails viewed in Outlook desktop to match the app and OWA today. We don't have timelines for that work yet, but we know it's an issue and we want to fix it as users include more rich media in their posts. There are also updates coming to various versions of Outlook that will help solve some of these problems as well, so please stay tuned as we address from both the Viva Engage and Outlook sides. Thank you for the question! We know Outlook is so important for our customers' networks, and we want to make the experience as amazing as possible.
Viva Engage: Desktop App
Q: What will be the impact for the existing Edge/Chrome Yammer Progressive Web App (if any)?
A: The PWA app for Yammer would be rebranded as well. On June 28th, when existing PWA users open Engage, they will get the pop-up below and need to accept the name update.
Viva Engage: Webpart
Q: How will the Yammer transition impact the SharePoint web part functionality? Rename of the webparts and potential reconfiguration?
A: We are continuing to support these, and they will continue to work. The rename of these, and other integrations with Yammer, will come after we rename the core experiences (web, mobile).
Viva Engage: API
Q: Will the legacy Yammer API continue to function as this change is rolled out? We are using it extensively. Thank you!
A: Current Yammer API's will continue to work against both Yammer and Engage.
Viva Engage: Notifications
Q: Are there any plans for notifications in the Viva engage application in Teams, it would be great to get notification and notification in the app in a similar way messages etc in teams. (like you have 2 missed messages)
- We are working on a more refined approach of which types of notifications should appear as an email (i.e. an important Announcement) vs. going into other channels (i.e. Teams, Viva Engage Bell), so we will continue to update our customers as we work through these changes and updates. Thanks for your patience!
Q: Will the notification email address "noreply@yammer.com" also change?
A: Eventually we will be changing this, but not yet. We'll provide notice when this does change.
Viva Engage: Admins
Q: I noticed few enhancements to the Yammer network admin center reports. Do we foresee any major updates or changes to the admin center configurations? If so what will it be?
A: We have a new admin center for managing Viva Engage, check out my full blog post here - Viva Engage Admin center overview | Microsoft Learn. We are continuing to bring more admin configurations into the new admin center, but for now you will see a integration between the Engage and the Yammer admin center for compliance and data export activities. Through the course of this year, more admin configurations will begin to live within the Engage admin center (given the rebranding). We will keep you posted as and when they release.
Viva Engage: Leadership Corner, AMA, Campaigns
Q: Do we need a separate license like Viva engage core to leverage the complete Viva engage experience? or is it included in the existing E5 license?
A: The base capabilities that are available as part of 'Yammer' today, are available as part of the Viva Engage core license which is included in all the Microsoft 365 enterprise SKUs. There are new set of premium capabilities that we just released (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-viva-blog/new-leadership-analytics-and-knowledge-ex...) that will require the Viva Suite license. More information about the Viva Suite license here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-viva/pricing