New and Improved Features for Office 365

Social Networking and Conferencing Updates

Check out updated features below for:

• Newsfeed (within SharePoint)
• Teams
• Yammer
  

(Updated) Yammer is evolving into Viva Engage

March 13, 2023 – Today Microsoft is announcing their intention to rebrand Yammer into Viva Engage in order to provide a consistent and delightful experience to their customers. This change will happen across all existing Yammer surfaces—including web, mobile, and integrations (Embed, SharePoint and Outlook) and will occur throughout 2023. In the coming months you can expect Yammer to become Viva Engage through the update of brand elements like logo, app icon and name. 

When this will happen: 

The first stage of this rebrand happened last year with the rebranding of the Yammer Communities app for Teams into Viva Engage. The rest of rebrand will occur incrementally, starting with the mobile apps (iOS & Android) and the Communities app for Outlook updating their app icons and name in March 2023. 

In late February, as we prepare for the Yammer mobile app changes, Microsoft will add an in-app banner with relevant information around the switch. At the same time, the app name in the Google Play and App Store will be updated to “Yammer (Viva Engage)” and there will be no change to the installed app name or icon.

Starting April 3rd (previously mid-to-late March), the installed apps will update to the “Viva Engage” name and icon, updates may be automatic depending on your settings."

The app name in the Google Play and App Store will be updated to “Viva Engage (Yammer)” and the icon will be updated to the Viva Engage icon. Search by “Yammer” will continue to display the app as the top result.

Notifications will be updated to the Viva Engage name and icon, a reference to Yammer will remain until later this year.

All Yammer references in the app will be updated to Viva Engage, and there will be a pop up informing the change as well as a banner directing users to the public blog post about the rebrand with more information around what’s changing and the timeline.

How this will affect your organization: 

There will be no impact to the existing profile, posts, bookmarks, etc. All rebranding updates don’t require additional actions; changes will be automatic. Outside of branding changes, there are no changes to the features, capabilities and investments for Microsoft 365 customers. You will continue to experience and benefit from the power of Viva Engage just as you did with Yammer.

'Forms' app polling features for Teams meeting will be replaced by 'Polls' app

February 20, 2023 - Microsoft will be retiring the polling feature in the 'Forms' app in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft recommends utilization of the 'Polls' app, which is where Microsoft will continue to invest their development resources.

When this will happen:

Microsoft will retire this feature by late September 2023.

How this will affect you:

You will no longer be able to add the polling feature in the 'Forms' app to your meeting for polling experiences when this change is implemented.

What you need to do to prepare:

Your polls and response data in Forms app will be automatically synced to Polls app. All you have to do is add the Polls app to your existing or upcoming meetings/chats, and you're ready to go.

Click here for additional information.

Yammer is Evolving into Viva Engage

February 17, 2023 - Today Microsoft is announcing their intention to rebrand Yammer into Viva Engage in order to provide a consistent and delightful experience to their customers. This change will happen across all existing Yammer surfaces-- including web, mobile, and integrations (Embed, SharePoint and Outlook) and will occur throughout 2023. In the coming months you can expect Yammer to become Viva Engage through the update of brand elements like logo, app icon and name.

When this will happen:

The first stage of this rebrand happened last year with the rebranding of the Yammer Communities app for Teams into Viva Engage. The rest of rebrand will occur incrementally, starting with the mobile apps (iOS & Android) and the Communities app for Outlook updating their app icons and name in March 2023.

In late February, as Microsoft prepares for the Yammer mobile app changes, they will add an in-app banner with relevant information around the switch. At the same time, the app name in the Google Play and App Store will be updated to “Yammer (Viva Engage)” and there will be no change to the installed app name or icon.

In mid-to-late March, the installed apps will update to the “Viva Engage” name and icon, updates may be automatic depending on your settings.

The app name in the Google Play and App Store will be updated to “Viva Engage (Yammer)” and the icon will be updated to the Viva Engage icon. Search by “Yammer” will continue to display the app as the top result.

Notifications will be updated to the Viva Engage name and icon, a reference to Yammer will remain until later this year.

All Yammer references in the app will be updated to Viva Engage, and there will be a pop up informing the change as well as a banner directing users to the public blog post about the rebrand with more information around what’s changing and the timeline.

How this will affect you:

There will be no impact to the existing profile, posts, bookmarks, etc. All rebranding updates don’t require additional actions; changes will be automatic. Outside of branding changes, there are no changes to the features, capabilities and investments for Microsoft 365 customers. You will continue to experience and benefit from the power of Viva Engage just as you did with Yammer.

Teams Mobile - Large Gallery in Meetings Update

June 2, 2021 - The "Large Gallery" layout for meetings on Teams mobile is getting an upgrade! This layout will become mobile-optimized, letting you swipe through all the participants in a meeting. This is rolling out on the Teams iOS and Android app.

We will begin rolling this out in mid-June and expect to complete rollout late July.

This release will improve the experience for users who join Teams mobile meetings by positioning up to 10 participants per page on your screen on both phone and tablets, and allowing you to swipe through all attendees while in a meeting.

Device compatibility: The above mentioned experience will be available for iOS 13+, Android OS 9+ or any version with more than 4GB RAM. Devices below these configurations will continue to see the current experience of lower resolution videos with no swipe through ability.

Large gallery mobile:

(Updated) Announcing Annotations in PowerPoint Live in Teams

June 1, 2021 - We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

This new release will allow users to use a virtual laser pointer and make ink annotations when presenting through PowerPoint Live in Teams. Just as a presenter would use a physical laser pointer in a room, PowerPoint Live allows users to highlight by pointing at different places or data so the audience can easily follow along. This is rolling out on Microsoft Teams desktop, web and Mac.

We will begin rolling this out in early June (previously late May) and expect to complete rollout mid-June (previously early June).

With this update, the active "in control" presenter will be able to use these new annotation tools. These tools enable presenters to better express or add content and engage more with their audience by drawing attention to certain sections within the PowerPoint slide show.

• Only the active “in control” presenter will be able to see and make annotations via the annotation toolbar.
• Annotations made by the presenter will only remain for the duration of the Microsoft Teams meeting.
• Meeting attendees joining late will be able to see annotations previously made by the presenter.
• No annotations will be saved in the PowerPoint file.

New Feature: Yammer Question and Answer

June 25, 2019 - Starting July 1st, all users will be able to ask questions in a Yammer group, and the question poster or any group admin can mark the best answer to a question. The best answer shows up right under the question, making it easy for people to get right to the information they need. This feature will also be available for Live Events in Yammer.

We'll be gradually rolling this out on 7/1/2019 and the roll out will be completed soon after.

Please click additional information to learn more.

General Availability of Live Events in Microsoft 365

March 28, 2019 - Live events in Microsoft 365 is a new capability that has been in preview and will become generally available in the next few weeks. Live events enable users to broadcast video from Microsoft Stream, Teams and Yammer, and can be used for a wide range of scenarios, from screensharing and webcams, to studio-quality broadcasting that supports the use of third-party encoders.

Events can be created by Teams users that have meeting capabilities enabled, Yammer users that own or manage a group, and all Stream users that have licenses which include video upload capabilities.

We will begin rolling this out mid-March and expect to be complete by the end of the month.

Learn more about Live events in Teams
Learn more about Live events in Yammer
Learn more about Live events in Stream

New Feature: Yammer Tab for Microsoft Teams

March 27, 2019 - Microsoft Teams users are now able to add a Yammer tab to their Teams channel that loads a specified group or topic feed from Yammer. This new feature allows members to follow and share conversations in Yammer without having to leave Teams. 

Your team members can participate in the Yammer conversation, right from Teams, or discuss a Yammer conversation in Teams before posting a reply to the wider Yammer group. When a Teams member goes to the Yammer tab, they are authenticated again by Yammer, so that they only see Yammer content that they have access to.

Members can only add tabs to a team if team members are enabled to do so. 

Please click additional information to learn more.

New Feature: Rich Text Formatting in Yammer

March 13, 2019 - All Yammer users will now be able to write posts using bold, italics, links, bullet points and numbered lists.

Composing of messages with rich text formatting will only be available on the web client. However, the web client, as well as the mobile clients, will support rendering of styled messages. Messages created using rich text formatting can be edited on the web client but not on mobile clients.

We’ll begin rolling this change out over the next week, and we anticipate rollout completion by mid-May 2019.

Please click additional information to learn more.

Outlook Mobile Supports Teams Meetings

February 20, 2019 - As announced at Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft will be rolling out native support for creating and joining Microsoft Teams meeting in Outlook for iOS and Android in late-March. The ability to create Teams meetings will be available to all Outlook mobile customers.

In late-March, you will start to see the option to add Teams when creating or editing calendar events in Outlook mobile. In addition, the option to create Teams meetings will replace the option to create Skype meetings in Outlook mobile. If you still need to create Skype meetings, you can continue to do so from Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, and Outlook on the web.

Note: If you receive invitations to Skype meetings, there is no change to the current experience, and you will continue to see the Join button in those calendar events.

Updated Feature: "All Company" Group Name Removed when Posting an Update/Poll/Praise on Yammer Home Feed

February 5, 2019 - Microsoft removed the default group ("All Company") that is selected when a user types into the update box/poll/praise box on Yammer home feed.

How does this affect me?

• "All Company" will no longer be the default group for posts on the Yammer Home page. For most users, this will make posting easier because they will not need to first remove "All Company" before adding the intended group recipient. Those users who do want to post to "All Company" will need to select the "All Company" group as they do any other group.

Please click additional information to learn more.

Update: Yammer Group Files in Office 365 Connected Groups will Now be Stored in SharePoint

November 28, 2018 - Microsoft will be gradually releasing a new feature where all new files posted in Yammer groups that are Office 365 connected will be stored in SharePoint.

With this functionality all new files posted in Office 365 connected Yammer groups will now be stored in the SharePoint account that is associated with the Office 365 Group. Keep in mind that existing files, files in unconnected groups, and files in private messages will not be impacted by this change and will continue to be stored in the legacy location. This change will begin rolling out towards the end of December 2018, and is expected to be completed worldwide by end of March 2019.

Please click additional information to learn more.

New Feature: Live Events in Microsoft 365

July 30, 2018 - Live events in Microsoft 365 is a new feature that enables you and your users to broadcast video from Microsoft Teams, Stream, and Yammer. We will initially be launching this feature in preview. Additionally, Microsoft Teams, Yammer, and Stream now support third-party encoders that enable studio-quality broadcasting.

How does this affect me?

Live events in Microsoft 365 enables you and authorized users to communicate broadly across your organization with interactive experiences that include conversations, video, and content delivery.

You can create a live event in Microsoft Stream, Microsoft Teams, or Yammer — wherever your audience, team, or community resides. The event can be as simple or as sophisticated as you’d like.

With Quick Start in Microsoft Teams, you can create casual presentations and panels, using webcams, content and screen sharing. This uses the built-in encoding in Teams so you don't need additional software for presenters.

For more formal events, you can use a third-party encoder to enable the use of high-end cameras and other inputs to broadcast a studio-quality production in Teams, Stream, or Yammer.

We will begin gradually rolling these updates out over the month of August, and we anticipate rollout completion by the end of September.

What do I need to do to prepare for this change?

Live events in Stream and Yammer will be on-by-default, however, as an Office 365 administrator, you will need to assign permissions for end users to access this feature.

Scheduling a "Quick Start" event or enabling a third-party encoder in Microsoft Teams is also on-by-default, but only available to users in your organization that have Teams meeting capabilities enabled.

Rationalizing Experiences in Yammer and Office 365

April 20, 2018 - In recent months, Microsoft has shared their commitment to Yammer and have unveiled innovations that deepen Yammer’s integration with Office 365. As part of that journey, Microsoft is removing several features from Yammer that are now supported with more modern alternatives in Office 365.

In May 2018, Microsoft will remove the following Yammer features and they encourage customers to explore the following alternatives in Office 365:

• Yammer’s native org chart feature. Use the rich, interactive organization chart in Delve, Microsoft Teams, people search, and people cards that surface in many Office 365 experiences including Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
• Recent Activity module on the home page. Activity from your connections can be seen in Delve, in the activity web part in SharePoint, and in people cards that surface in many Office 365 experiences including Outlook, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
• Syncing contacts on the mobile apps. User profile data is automatically synced via Azure Active Directory, while Yammer uses the Microsoft Graph to recommend colleagues most relevant to you. 
• The Yammer desktop notifier application. The new Yammer desktop application surfaces notifications and provides a fully-featured Yammer experience for desktop users.