It is hard making sense of the Office 365 suite from Microsoft. Barely had we had time to grasp that they have included Yammer in all Office 365 tenants, and what that means. Then Microsoft threw their Teams app into the game, and it became even more challenging to understand which product does what.
To help us, they gave an excellent introduction to the product’s capabilities:
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It is, however, not the product in itself that is hard to grasp. On the contrary, it seems straightforward and well-designed, and it is integrated with the rest of the 365 suite. The somewhat obscured path ahead is created when comparing Teams with Yammer and more. Here is where people like Naomi Moneypenny and Marc D Anderson come to the rescue.
Confused by all the apps
Marc D Anderson wrote an article called “Dear Microsoft: I’m Confused. Can You Help Me Collaborate Well?” Here, he highlights the feeling so many of us get when looking at the array of tools Microsoft give us:
What has me confused about Microsoft’s overlapping offerings in the communication spectrum is that they don’t come with guidance about which is good when or for what type of organizations. Instead we see a lot of talk about choice being good.
He also asks Microsoft to guide us much better:
Here’s hoping that the smart people in Redmond get on this soon. As the options keep piling up on us, it’s only getting harder to choose.
The solution: Highlighting what each app is good at
Naomi took a step in clarifying the road ahead by writing an article called “Choices in Collaboration: Microsoft Teams, Yammer & Office 365 Groups Service“. Here, Naomi clarifies that Office 365 Groups are the fabric behind our collaboration choices. She also explains what separates Teams from Yammer:
Yammer is the really the only app in O365 that allows you to have a conversation with the entire company. You can of course push an email or IM to the entire company, but that’s not the level of dialog we are looking for these days. Yammer is a great way to enable conversation across an entire organization. […] Once a project team has come together to work on a specific set of tasks and deliverables, that team should decide whether they want to use the Groups conversation experience primarily in Outlook, or Outlook then Teams, Teams or Yammer to get their specific work done.
Thank you Microsoft for wanting us to collaborate better. You could, however, reach even further by listening to Naomi, Marc, and more. Many of us take care of Office 365 environments, and our job is to alleviate collaboration pains. The better you at Microsoft describe what to use when, the smoother our ride becomes.
