This morning, Microsoft announced that it is delivering new Communities experiences and Viva connectors to various Microsoft 365 apps and services, which should assist enterprises in handling the trend of hybrid work. Microsoft Teams meetings will also get new features, according to the company.
The Corporate Vice President of Microsoft 365, Jeff Teper, said: “Yammer usage doubled year-over-year and now supports tens of millions of monthly active users worldwide. New integrations and capabilities will bring these community experiences and scale directly into Viva, offering immediate value and growth opportunities for our customers. We’re bringing the superpowers of Yammer, including communities, open conversation, and discovery experiences into Viva,” explained Jeff Teper, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft 365.
Employees will be able to access a more extensive topic page with community discussions, question and answer cards, and all information about experts based on their participation in Yammer communities. Employees will be able to ask questions on the Viva Topics page, and the app will automatically assign dedicated experts to answer them.
Microsoft Teams’ Communities app is also being updated, with support for new features and capabilities like deep-linking, notifications, and suggested communities. According to the company, the software is being updated to modernize the interface and bring it in line with Microsoft Teams.
In addition to these improvements, Microsoft has announced that Yammer communities will be added to Outlook on the web. Outlook users will soon be able to participate in live events, have conversations with their colleagues, and more right within the Outlook app thanks to the new Communities app. Later this year, this upgrade will also be available for Outlook for Windows.
However, the Redmond firm is announcing two new features that should help team members collaborate and communicate more effectively.
These include the addition of a new “Followers” area on Yammer topic pages, which provides unique capabilities such as the ability to follow a certain topic and identify experts and collaborators who are similarly interested in it. Functionality that allows approved Yammer users to post on behalf of someone else in their business is also available.
