Yammer Vs Slack

With increasing number of teams working on projects from different locations in different time zones, the importance of having a private business social platform that helps the team members to communicate and coordinate with each other increases manifolds. Another important role it plays is that it significantly reduces the number of emails being generated for communication at a workplace. They can be on-premise or cloud-based software that include many useful features like instant messaging, document sharing, group chats, track information, and much more.

Though there are a number of public social networking platforms, they might be compromising on your client's privacy, identity management, legal compliance and implementing service level agreements. Thus, having a private social platform for workplace communication that can comply with regal requirements and also handle large volume of queries and responses is needed. Two such popular enterprise collaboration software that you might have come across are Yammer and Slack.

Yammer is a Microsoft social networking product that provides an open platform for team members to hold discussions, share updates, give feedback and clarify doubts. Since communication through Yammer is instantaneous, improving processes, sharing innovative ideas and making decisions becomes fast and easy. Yammer, in sync with other MS products like SharePoint and OneDrive helps you make this communication even more seamless. Yammer now comes bundles with the Office 365 subscription.

The other app that is steadily gaining popularity for workplace communication is Slack. It has a user-friendly platform that integrates with Skype and Google Drive to make video calling and file sharing easy. You can start using the free version to see if it meets your requirements, otherwise, the paid version of Slack also has some additional features such as screen sharing and group calls.

Similarities

Yammer and Slack are both similar in the way that they are both private messaging tools that make communication at a workplace smooth and quick. Both of them are available on devices such as Windows, Mac, Android, Windows phone and iPhone/iPad. They are also available for use online without being downloaded on these devices.

Yammer has an interface that is familiar to Facebook. Since you are already familiar with using Facebook, using Yammer becomes easier. Slack also comes with a user-friendly environment that is very polished and intuitive to use. It uses some popular features, such as hashtags and emoticons to make the user feel completely at home.

A common feature amongst Yammer and Slack is that they help you stay organized by creating different groups for different projects and teams. You can also start a direct conversation with a team member on both these platforms. You can use features like the hashtag (#), mention (@), star, upload, links, search and many more to help you organize and find information quickly. These features help you in making a trail of relevant messages, bookmarking important discussions and looking for particular topics simple.

Both Yammer and Slack have efficient notification systems. Yammer sends a notification only when users are away from Yammer for specific time interval. Also, if you have received a notification for a new activity but have not gone to Yammer to respond to it, Yammer will not send you a notification for the same thread of conversation. Similarly, in Slack, you can select what you get notified about. This helps in avoiding notifications to keep piling on.

Yammer is a part of the Office 365 group and integrates efficiently with various Office apps as well as external systems such as Zapier, Slack, Zendesk, GoodData, Smarsh, Bagdeville, Hype, Buzztale, Hootsuite, Mindflash etc. Slack also provides integrates with third-party apps like Twitter, Google Docs/Drive, Dropbox, Zendesk, GitHub, MailChimp, etc. This helps in bringing the information from all these tools together with the chat interface to help keep context with the discussions.

They are both suitable to be used by small businesses, mid-sized businesses, and large enterprises. They both offer free trial of their restricted versions so that even freelancers can gain out of using them.

Differences

Though Slack is similar to Yammer, there are some distinct differences in both their features.

Features	Yammer	Slack
Organization	Yammer helps you to stay organized by categorizing your communication in: Groups: You can create different groups for different teams and projects.  Following: Here you can see all the conversations that you started, replied to, or chose to Follow in Inbox.  Followers: This lists the team members who are following your conversations.  Following Topics: This shows you the list of hashtags that you are following. It helps you find all the topics of your interest in one place.	Slack enables you to organize your chats in 3 main categories: Channels: A channel can be created to chat with different member groups and projects teams. Direct messages: You can also chat with individual team members using direct messaging. Private Groups: These are private groups that function as exclusive channels. The content here is only visible to those members who are included in the group by the admin.
Integration with external systems	Yammer can only integrate with limited apps such as Zapier, Slack, Zendesk, GoodData, Smarsh, Bagdeville, Hype, Buzzte, Hootsuite, Mindflash, etc.	Slack provides integration with many more apps like Dropbox, SalesForce Sales cloud, Gmail, Google, Trello, Twitter, etc.
Voice, Video and Screen Sharing	Making Voice and Video calls and sharing your screen is possible in Yammer using Microsoft Stream.	Slack integrates with apps like apear.in, Blue Jeans, Daily.co, Google Hangouts, GoToMeeting, etc, to provide voice calling, video calling and screen sharing.
Formatting Code Snippets	The only way you can post a piece of code on Yammer is by inserting a # and a space before pasting that code so that it will not be converted into a new topic or reformatting it.  It does not provide a way by which code and command-line output can be inserted as a marked text section so that it appears just as it is.	Slack supports sharing of code snippets, log files and configuration files easy. It does not reformat a piece of code and displays it inside a marked text section.  You can read it, download it and leave comments for such a post. If you created a snippet, you can also edit it later on Slack if required. This feature is only available on desktop version of Slack.
Inline Link Previews	Link previews are not available in Yammer as of now. On posting a link, it simply displays a long URL. There is no way to understand what the link contains.	Similar to other social networking apps like Facebook, on inserting a link to an image, website, file etc. Slack displays a link preview that shows some text/images from the content as an image.  A link preview is at times important to increase audience engagement and also to give a better understanding of the posted content.
Attaching a File	Yammer allows you to attach and share a file in a message by selecting different ways in which you want to share it.  You can select to upload it from your device or attach it from elsewhere in Yammer, SharePoint or OneDrive. You can also attach a GIF from those that already exist in Yammer.	Slack gives you a very easy way of uploading files from your device. You can simply drag and drop them into Slack from a folder. You can also copy and paste images directly into a message.  Another way of uploading a file is by clicking the plus icon on a message and selecting it on your device to upload it.
Sharing a Thread	Sharing a thread in Yammer across groups creates new conversations in those groups.  Hence, the comments or likes on those threads need to be manually monitored for analysis. Also, it’s a lot of work to post threads individually in all groups.	To share a thread with individual team members or groups, you can simply @mention them in the threaded message. They will automatically start following that thread. This will also start showing the threaded message under the All Threads View in their Slack.  This helps to link everyone to the same thread and keep the discussion relevant. It also helps to keep a track of everyone's replies and reactions in one place.
Using Emojis	As of now it's not possible to use emoticons or emojis while posting messages in Yammer.	Slack has a rich collection of emojis to match all your moods and personalize a message. It helps in making conversations in the workplace short, crisp and fun.
Local time of Users	Yammer does not display the users' local time on the profile pages. It only displays the Activity Stream Ticker. It displays the time when another user has viewed a message, uploaded, downloaded, created and joined a group. This can sometimes come across as a breach in user's privacy.	Slack displays the local time on the profile of each user. This helps in keeping a track of time when team members are in different time zones.
App Support	Yammer provides customer support, admin support, blog and community support. It also has numerous knowledge base articles for its users.	Slack provides online support, numerous knowledge base articles and also video tutorials for the users to learn how to use it and clarify their doubts.
Pricing	Yammer offers three payment plans. You can select them according to the features available in each and your business requirements: Office 365 Business Essentials $5.00/month/user Office 365 Business $8.25/month/user Office 365 Business Premium $12.50/month/user	Slack offers three Small and Medium business and Enterprise pricing packages. You can select a plan according to your requirements: Free – No limits on time or users Standard – $6.67 per user/month billed annually ($8 billed monthly) Plus – $12.50 per user/month billed annually ($15 billed monthly) Enterprise – By quote