Yammer vs Microsoft Teams
Introduction
SharePoint became the best collaborative platform ever and continuously evolving in term of introducing the new features those let the customer and organization become productive by working closely with each other through collaborative features. When the ECM has been introduced in the SharePoint initial day, Announcement list was the first ever collaborative feature then and slowly Microsoft roll out the discussion board, event list, Meeting site and very latest Community sites in SharePoint 2013. But the collaboration became vital for every business, it started to look beyond the traditional collaboration features.
But every feature has its own capabilities, advantages and drawbacks by the way of its been developed and deployed and its availability to the broad user base.
In this, Yammer and Microsoft Team is the latest arrival and it has changed the way of team, organization and individual communicating with their business user and customer.
Summarizing how these products are different from each other by its collaboration features, Development model and its Configuration.
Collaboration Features
| No | Microsoft Teams | Yammer |
| 1 | Chat based workspace | Enterprise Social collaboration environment. |
| 2 | Office 365 Groups can be used to create the Microsoft Team. Each new group will have its own email id that shares the group name. | It has own group and network creation model |
| 3 | Internal or Group member with O365 licensed user can use it. | External user can collaborate with Yammer |
| 4 | Groups can be private and public visible. | Group / Network can be private and public visible. |
| 5 | Within a group, Channel can be created. This is very useful for Project Manager and Delivery head to manage and monitor their team by connecting with them | Group is the highest hierarchy.No Channel type of option not available. |
| 6 | A meeting can be scheduled without leaving the page as its connected with Exchange Online. Skype HD Audio/video with limited user presence. By default, it will show only the 4 speaking persons. | Meeting cannot be scheduled. |
| 7 | Documents can be aggregated from SharePoint Online, One Drive and Google Drive and other cloud storage service provider. | Can be uploaded only from a local machine and SharePoint Online. |
| 8 | Access policies in line with Microsoft Intune. | Not compliance with Intune |
| 9 | Chat with a group and one to one with persistent chat history. | Private Message only, no chat feature available.Conversation will be recorded as thread |
| 10 | One Notes and Swap can be share and merged into Teams. Wiki tab lets you work on the notes and contents on real time with users. | It has own built-in notes and it will go away soon. |
| 11 | Search can be done and support the Microsoft Graph API, Compliance with all auditing features including legal and On-Hold. So conversation, files and emails can be preserved. | Legal hold and On-Hold not available. |
| 12 | User can install the Desktop Client Installation to communicate with Microsoft Teams |
No Desktop client installation available to communicate with Yammer. |
| 13 | Pool, Quiz and feed back can be added through MS Form. | Social features like likeness , Pool,quiz and appreciation and badge available. |
Development possibility
| No | Microsoft Teams | Yammer |
| 1 | Custom UI can be integrated through Modern UI/Page (Fabric and Angular, React or SharePoint Framework) development. Tabs can be created. | UI cannot be customized |
| 2 | Single Page implementation. | Multi pages and view based. |
| 3 | Developers can create the app using JavaScript, Fluent UI, Modern Page UI and REST API. | It has own development approach, Yammer App Development based on REST API collectively called Open Graph |
| 4 | Connected Services / Custom Connector can be developed and integrated with Teams | No services except SharePoint Online and Yammer App development. |
Configuration/Settings
| No | Microsoft Teams | Yammer |
| 1 | Tightly integrated with Office 365. | Yammer is an external application that is integrated within SharePoint system. |
| 2 | Superuser and Knowledge worker can easily manage the Teams. | To configure and roll out the Yammer to your Office 365 or On-Premises, requires IT and Network professional’s help. |
| 3 | Available only on Office365 for licensed user. | It’s available for On-Premises SharePoint environment |
| 4 | - | Need to remove or override the SharePoint social features to roll out the Yammer on On-Premises SharePoint. |
| 5 | - | Requires AD and ADFS infrastructure professional help to extend the Yammer to your partner, vendor and customer |
| 6 | Teams can be enabled to a specific user through O365 tenant admin panel. | You cannot enable/disable the Yammer feature to user basis. |
| 7 | Its single page deployment model. No web part infrastructure. | Yammer WebParts available for SharePoint |
| 8 | Its part of Office 365 services and continues development and product improvement visible. | Single Sign-On deprecated at Yammer Core application level. So enterprise customer can integrate the Yammer within their own environment or need to opt the Hybrid mode. |