The Yammer Blog

Yammer Android Application now Available

We are pleased to announce the arrival of the Yammer Android application! Many Android users have waited patiently for the official Yammer-endorsed application, and the day has come. Android users can now enjoy rich workplace connectivity on the go like our iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile users.

We acquired the source code from Nullwire, the developers of Yowl, a third party Yammer Android application. We've made some adjustments to the code, and are happy to put out the product we now have. To download the application, please go here and follow the instructions. The Yammer Android application is open source, and the GitHub repository can be found here.

This application can be installed on any phone running Google's Android operating system, including the Nexus One, the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1), the HTC Magic (T-Mobile myTouch 3G), the HTC Hero, and the Samsung i7500 (Galaxy).

Our list of applications continues to grow. Check them out! If you're not using a smartphone, you can stay connected on the go via our SMS and Email clients.

Yammer Launches Windows Mobile Application and Outlook Plug-in

Today marks the first anniversary of Yammer winning TechCrunch 50, the tech industry event where Yammer first launched. This year's event began with a major announcement from Yammer. This morning, live on stage at TechCrunch50, Yammer and Microsoft announced the release of new Yammer applications for Windows Mobile and Outlook 2007. The companies have partnered through Microsoft's BizSpark program to extend the functionality of Yammer onto these and other Microsoft platforms. 

Outlook Plug-in

The new Outlook plug-in allows users to post status updates, view feeds, reply to messages, upload attachments, send messages to Yammer groups, and invite colleagues to their secure Yammer network from within their Office Outlook 2007 e-mail client.

Click here to download the Outlook plugin

Windows Mobile Application

The Windows Mobile application allows users to stay connected wherever they are on their Windows Mobile device. With it they can view feeds, post updates and replies, look up colleagues, and place calls to colleagues in their Yammer network.

Click here to download the Windows Mobile application

New Yammer Design and Features

Yammer has updated its design and added a number of new features. These include:

•  “Likes”
•   Threading
•   Advanced search
•   iPhone app version 2
•   Broadcast (admin feature)
•   Password Expiration (admin feature)
•   Lightboxes for Images
•   Cleaner, simpler UI

Keep reading to get the full scoop on all the new features:

Likes

A new “Like” action on messages enables users to express their approval. Liking a message will automatically re-post it to your followers, enabling popular content to quickly spread throughout your network. Your Liked messages are saved in a feed for future reference. (Likes replaces the old Bookmark feature.)

Threaded Mode

There are two ways to view messages on Yammer: as a stream (like on Twitter) or in threads (like on Facebook). Yammer allows you to toggle between these views at the bottom of every feed, where you’ll find a control to turn threading on or off.

The benefit of threading is that it shows all the replies to a message underneath the original update, making it easier to follow conversations. However, unlike the stream view, it requires a page refresh to see new messages. (An alert at the top of the page will prompt you to refresh when there are new messages to see.) When a thread gets a new reply, it moves to the top of the feed.

We’ve improved the look of threads by always displaying their two most recent replies, along with a link to expand the thread fully. A new reply box at the end of each thread makes it easier to contribute to the conversation.

We expect to make threaded view the new default; however, users will be able to set their own preference. Also, if you prefer the old threaded view (with no replies expanded by default), you can opt for this in your appearance settings.

iPhone 2.0

We've released the new version of our iPhone app (pending approval from Apple's App store). Here's what's new:

• Composing Updates: A ‘compose update’ button in the upper-right corner opens the new compose mode with these improvements:
  • Auto-saving of drafts until they are submitted or erased
  • Automatic wrapping of text to the next line
  • Landscape mode option for typing an update
  • A camera mode to quickly attach a photo. You can take the photo then or choose one from your existing photos.

• Push: Push notifications are now available to alert you of new messages. Customize Push notifications in the Settings tab to configure sound, sleep hours, and which feeds to Push.

• Received tab: The “Home” tab is now “My Feed” and the second tab is now “Received” so you have easy access to this important feed.

• Cached Feeds: Messages are now cached from the last update to improve performance; this is especially useful for using the app without network access. An “Updated (time)” banner shows the last time your feed was successfully updated. The Feed and Directory lists are also now cached.

Advanced Search

New search filters improve Yammer’s capabilities as a knowledge base. You can now search messages by a specific user, in a specific group, and/or between specific dates. You can also limit results to messages by colleagues you follow. You can also choose whether to include RSS feeds.

Broadcast

Network administrators can now send important updates to their entire network using the new Broadcast feature. For more information about Yammer’s admin tools, please click here.

Password Expiration

Password Expiration has been added to our password policy package. Network admins can set recurring password expirations in parallel with password complexity requirements as security measures for their networks. For more information on Yammer’s security features please here.

Lightbox Images

Instead of breaking up your work-flow by opening images in a new page, Yammer will now open images in lightboxes on the same page. Lightboxing highlights and brings images to the fore-front, allowing you to quickly browse through while maintaining your site-experience.

Updated Styles

With all of these features comes a sleek new UI with brighter tones and simpler navigation. The right-hand panel is better organized: feeds and groups have been separated and categorized, basic network information and applications have been added, and icons help differentiate your various feeds.

As always, we want to hear what you think about these new features and how we can continue to improve Yammer. Please post to our Feedback Forum. 

Yammer Makes Move to San Francisco

Eleven months ago, Yammer shook San Francisco. We launched on stage at the TechCrunch50, won Best in Show, and headed right back to LA to work on improving the product.

Since then, we've been constantly adding new features for both users and administrators, including groups, attachments, private messages, mailing list integration, a graphical org-chart, RSS feed import, multi-network support, Twitter integration, a new desktop client and much more.

Yammer has successfully scaled to accommodate its growing customer base, and is now used by over 40,000 companies worldwide.

And now, San Francisco, we're back! We've packed up and moved to our new headquarters in the SoMa district. There's an incredible array of startups based here and it's exciting to be a part of it all. CEO David Sacks, a veteran of the startup scene, put it best: "I missed the mix of technology companies up here and being able to tap into the incredible brain trust in SoMa."

What does this mean for you? It means Yammer will continue to grow and evolve at an even quicker rate, and integrate with other popular web services.

Yammer's New Help System & Forum

As Yammer's product continues to grow with new and innovative features, it is equally important that our help system stays up to par. We want to make sure that we provide our users with the resources necessary to take full advantage of Yammer, including our How-To Guide, FAQ, and a Forum to discuss anything Yammer related. 

For this reason, we have migrated our help system and forum to one place, where can you easily access all of the mentioned resources. We understand that valuable content and discussion is saved in our older forum so we are not cutting off access to it, however, we will no longer be monitoring that forum. Please start using our new forum, which we will be actively monitoring.

Note: if you were registered on our old forum, you may have received an automated welcome email to set a new password for our new forum.  This email was sent from Yammer for your convenience.

We value your input as always and hope to make this transition as seamless as possible. Please post all comments questions and concerns to this forum thread.

Yammer Releases New Desktop Client

The Yammer Desktop Client is the most popular way to send and receive Yammer messages. Customers that use the Yammer Desktop Client have witnessed greater network adoption and engagement. Over the past few months our engineers have been working hard, completely rehauling the Desktop Client. The completely brand new client includes numerous UI improvements and additional functionality, including but not limited to:

• See messages appear in a continuous feed.
• Post new messages and reply to messages in the feed.
• Be notified of new messages when Yammer Desktop is minimized or in the background.
• Spellcheck.
• View threads in separate windows.
• Search colleagues, tags and groups.
• Quickly switch between multiple Yammer accounts.
• Expansion of truncated messages
• New notification system
• Application auto update dialogue box

To view all of the functionality and changes, try the New Desktop Client today!

Feedback is appreciated in this forum thread

Search Your Private Messages

You've always been able to search public messages on Yammer. This is a great way to get up to speed when joining a project team, hunt down information someone posted a few months ago, or locate a user you may only know by first name.

Now, your private messages are searchable, too! Whenever you perform a search, we'll include your private messages in your search results.

Here's how it works:

1. Enter your search term into the Search Bar in the upper right hand corner.

                        

2. Notice that an auto-complete list will appear, displaying members, groups, and tags within your network. You can make a selection from the auto-complete list or finish typing your search term and click the 'magnifying glass' icon to initiate the search.           

                        

3. The results are categorized by Messages, Members, Groups, and Tags.  

        

4. Clicking Messages, Members, Groups, or Tags tab will yield the results for that category. The number within the tab tells you how many results there are for that category.     

                        

                               (Notice the 'Padlock' icon, symbolizing a Private Message, appearing in the search result.)

Including private messages in search results is the first enhancement of many coming soon to the search feature. Stay tuned!

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this enhancement, join the discussion.

Visual Org Chart - Connect Your Colleagues!

Yammer's new visual org chart feature makes navigating your company easier than ever, not to mention fun! In addition to navigating your company's relationships, you can map additional superiors and reports and search for particular colleagues.

View Your Org Chart Now!

 New Feature: Yammer Bookmarklet!

Posting links to Yammer is just a click away with Yammer's new Bookmarklet feature.

Install Yammer Bookmarklet Now!


If you have any questions, comments or concerns about these new features, join the discussion.

Yammer Integrates with Twitter

You can now import your Twitter updates into Yammer, using the #yam tag. After linking your Yammer and Twitter accounts, any tweet (message posted to Twitter) that contains the #yam tag will be automatically imported into your Yammer network.

To add Twitter support to your Yammer account:

1. Go to Account Settings.
2. In the Contact section, add your Twitter username.
3. Add the tag #yam to any tweet that you want to also share with your Yammer followers.

To view all of the tweets people are also sending to Yammer view this feed.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this feature, post them here.

Yammer iPhone Application Goes Open Source

One of the most popular ways to use Yammer is on the iPhone. Thousands of users around the world have downloaded our iPhone application and use it on a daily basis. Now any of our users can help make the Yammer iPhone application even better. We've gone open source!
  
                                                                          

Read the Yammer iPhone Documentation

If you're an iPhone developer and would like to contribute, take a look at the README file for instructions. Contributing to a high profile application like Yammer's is a great way to gain exposure and make a name for yourself in the open source community. We can't wait to see what our users can do!

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to post them here.