SPC 2014 Prep – Yammer and Microsoft’s Social Roadmap

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As we prepare for SharePoint Conference 2014, starting March 2, all eyes are on Yammer and Microsoft’s Social Roadmap. Since Microsoft purchased Yammer in June 2012, there have been a steady stream of updates to the platform. If you have Yammer today, you may have noticed some of these updates – fonts, integrated newsfeeds, etc. But we still have a ways to go before Yammer is fully integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem. We still don’t have Office Web Apps, full SharePoint Integration, or full SSO.
Today, Microsoft announced a partial step to improving the user experience between Office 365 and Yammer – User Mapping. When you make Yammer your default social experience in Office 365, Office 365 users are mapped to their existing Yammer accounts. This means that when you click Yammer from your Office 365 global navigation bar, you do not need to authenticate again. Office 365 users without existing Yammer accounts are taken to a streamlined sign-up and verification process. For more information on enabling this feature, visit the Office Blog Here. 
Our last full roadmap update was back in November of 2013. At that time, Microsoft announced all Enterprise Office 365 customers would receive Enterprise licenses for Yammer included in their plans at no additional cost. This was a huge step for adoption of Yammer. At Perficient, we are seeing a large uptick in the amount of Yammer conversations we are having with our customers. Everyone wants to know about Yammer and try it out.
Also during that update, Microsoft announced it will no longer require licenses for external users when collaborating within Yammer External Networks. This change significantly reduces the friction in cross-org collaboration and will enable end users to work with customers and partners without having to worry about additional costs.
At Perficient, we have been doing quite a bit of exploratory work with customers on how to be leverage Yammer and External Networks. So much in fact, Microsoft has asked my Perficient colleague (and boss) Rich Wood to present on Yammer External Networks: Engaging Customers and Partners. I encourage you to check out Rich’s session for more information if you’re at SPC 2014.
The biggest item we are still waiting for more information from the roadmap is Document Conversation. Currently, Yammer has its own document storage backend. In the future, that backend will be SharePoint. How and When that happens is still quite a bit up in the air. The last mention we had from Microsoft, was the roadmap announcement last fall.
Stay tuned for more information on this and other exciting product integrations with Yammer. Perficient will have a large contingent at SharePoint Conference 2014. Please stop by our booth to say hello. We’ll also be keeping you informed via this blog with all the exciting news and announcements from the conference.