Less is more with notifications on Yammer
Volume and frequency of notifications can be overwhelming in the workplace. As Community Managers we are often found in the middle of community members who want fewer notifications, and business communicators who want to be sure their posts are being seen.
Fortunately, there are options available for individuals to be able to control their Yammer notifications to suit their own working style and preferences.
Help your team to manage their notifications by working these into training sessions, support material and communications.
Email and phone
Tuning the email notifications in Yammer can make a huge difference to your experience. While some people may prefer to get notifications for everything, I prefer to keep it lean.
You can control notifications for the following activities:
- There are updates in your communities (daily)
- Receive a message in your inbox
- Get new followers
- Install a new application
- Log in from somewhere new
- Post a message via email
- Someone invites you to a community
- Someone likes a message you posted (daily)
- Someone requests to join a private community you administer
- There are new suggestions for people to follow (weekly)
You can also select which communities you want to receive email notifications from for new activity.
Enable or disable Yammer email and phone notifications – Microsoft 365
Benefits to reducing email notifications:
- Fewer emails in your inbox
- Fewer distracting pop-ups (if you have those enabled)
- Focus on the Yammer activities that are important to you
Consider:
- Yammer’s Outlook integration is incredibly functional, the few emails you get will be easy to respond to if you need to
- Looking at other options to be sure you don’t miss important updates
Desktop
The new Yammer desktop app was recently released as a progressive web app (PWA) which makes it wonderfully simple to install. This app replaced the legacy desktop notifier, which was popular with people who preferred Yammer to behave like a desktop application, rather than the web application it is.
As a community manager, you may like to work with your IT team to use a policy to make it available for everyone on Edge. Or simply let them know they have the option to install it on their preferred web browser.
Install the new Yammer Desktop app – (microsoft.com)
Benefits of using the desktop app:
- You can pin Yammer to your taskbar and see a count of alerts
- You can opt in for notifications
- No need to flick through your many browser tabs to find Yammer
Consider:
- That little count of Yammer alerts could be a distraction for some
Mobile
The Yammer mobile app provides an incredibly rich experience, and makes sense that we can grab our phone to snap a photo, record a video and share it immediately. Why wait to get back to your desk.
Set up new Yammer on your mobile phone – Office Support (microsoft.com)
Benefits of using the mobile app:
- Read and respond to Yammer posts while on the go
- Tune your Yammer notifications in the same way as your other mobile apps
Consider:
- Making use of do not disturb features on your device when you need a break
Teams
If your organisation is using Yammer and Teams, hopefully they are realising the benefit of the Yammer Communities app. Not only does it mean you can get all of your Yammer goodness from within Teams, but Yammer notifications will appear in the Teams activity list.
It is worthwhile setting the Yammer Community app as a default for your Teams tenant.
Benefits of using Yammer communities:
- Get to Yammer quickly, from within Teams
- See Yammer notifications from where you are working
Consider:
- Clear messaging about the benefits of Yammer within Teams #BetterTogether
The good news about notifications is that so many of them can be controlled by you. That means if you want to know everything that’s going on you can dial it up. Or if you prefer a distraction free digital space you can tune it down.
