Communities in Yammer serve the needs of knowledge-sharing, employee experience, company-wide communications, and leadership engagement by providing a central place for your conversations, files, events, and updates. When you create a community, you automatically become an owner of the community. To learn how to manage your community, see Manage community members in Viva Engage.
Join a community in Yammer
The communities that you already belong to are listed in the left pane. To find more communities:
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Select Communities.
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Browse or use Search to find communities.
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Select a community to learn more. Check out the About page, scroll through the community feed, or look at members to find relevant communities.
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Select Join when you find a community you’d like to be a part of.
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Under Community Members, enter the names or email addresses of anyone you want to add to the community.
If it’s public, you’ll be added right away. If it’s private, the community admin will add you when they approve your request.
Create a community in Yammer
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Click the Yammer tile in Microsoft 365.
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At the bottom-left corner of the screen, select Create a Community.
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Under Community Name, enter the name of your community.
Tips:
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Use a short name so that it is easy for people to scan the list of communities. Your company may have community-naming conventions to follow. Look at other community names in your organization to see the names other people have used and to make sure the community you want to create doesn’t already exist.
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If your organization uses Office 365 connected groups and has a group naming policy, a prefix and or a suffix will be automatically added. If needed, an Engage admin can override the group naming policy. For more information, see the Office 365 Groups Naming Policy.
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Under Members, enter the names or email addresses of anyone you want to add to the community. After the community is created, you can add more members.
Native mode: You can add up to 19 members while creating a community (20 total including the community creator).
Non-native mode: You can add up to 50 members while creating a community.
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Under Who can view conversations and post messages, select one of the following:
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Public Access: Anyone on your network can view the content posted to this community and can join this community.
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Private Access: Only approved members of this community can view the content and a community admin must approve people who request to join this community.
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A default classification is selected under the Classification section. To change it, click Edit, and select the classification from the drop-down list.
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Select Create.
FAQ
Q: When should I create a new community?
A: Here are some suggestions for when to create a community:
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You know some people who want to participate in a community.
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You have content to contribute and can devote some time to managing the community.
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You understand that if you create it, you own it.
Q: Can I create an Office 365 connected Viva Engage community that uses existing Office 365 community resources?
A: No. When a new Office 365 connected community is created, it gets a new SharePoint site, SharePoint document library, OneNote notebook, plan in Microsoft Planner, and shows up in the Global Address Book.
Q. Why don't I have the option to create a community?
A: When an admin applies a group creation policy, only permitted users will see the option to create a community.
Q: Why do I get the error message: "Name is in use by an existing community, user, or invited user."?
A. For Viva Engage communities, if another community either currently exists, or if a user or someone who has been invited to your Viva Engage network has the same name as your proposed community name, you can't use the name..
For Office 365 connected groups, if a group that has been recently deleted has the same name as your proposed Viva Engage community name, the name can't be reused until the group is permanently deleted. For more information, see Permanently delete an Office 365 group.
Q: Why can't I create private unlisted communities, allow member approval in private communities, or require approval to join a public community?
A: Beginning in January 2017, there were changes to Viva Engage community types. These changes only impact new communities: existing communities with closed membership or team approval settings are not changed.
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Public Communities—the option for closed memberships is no longer be available
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Private Communities (Listed)—only community admins can grant approvals to new members
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Private Communities (Unlisted)—only community admins can grant approvals to new members
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Type |
Before January 2017 |
After January 2017 |
|---|---|---|
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Public Community |
The option for closed membership (requiring approval of either the admin of the community or member to join) was still available. |
The option for closed memberships (requiring approval of either the admin of the community or member to join) is no longer available; Public communities do not require any approvals going forward. |
|
Private Community |
Members need approval. The admin of the Viva Engage community or any member can approve. |
Only the admin of the Viva Engage community can grant approvals. |
|
Private Community (Unlisted) |
Members need approval. The admin of the Viva Engage community or any member can approve. |
Only the admin of the Viva Engage community can grant approvals. |
