Great news from the Yammer front! External Groups are announced:
Whether you need to work closely with customers, vendor partners, or suppliers, there will be times when you need to collaborate with people outside your organization. To help improve the way these extended teams get work done, we are very pleased to announce a new feature that will allow users to create external groups in Yammer.
External groups provide a seamless and secure way to collaborate across organizational boundaries, allowing members from outside your company access to all conversations and content in the group.
We’ve added several key features to ensure security of network data is maintained. These include:
- Creating a separate section for all external groups
- Requiring group admin approval for external members to join
- Providing the ability to implement Exchange Transport Rules (ETRs)
- Using clear indicators in the UI that alert users to the presence of external team members
- The data export tool includes additional functionality to help verified admins see which files and conversations are accessible to external users
The external groups feature will begin rolling out to Yammer networks this week. Below we have compiled some of the most frequently asked questions. We also have additional support documentation with more in-depth materials on how to create and manage external groups in Yammer.
FAQ and Additional Resources
Q: Can users add external people to existing groups?
A: No, external groups must be created as a new group. We’ve done this to clearly separate out external groups from other groups in Yammer.
Q: I don’t want External Groups enabled for my network. What options do I have to disable it?
A: The best way to control external messaging in your Yammer network is by choosing your Yammer Network to enforce your Exchange Transport Rules in Yammer. For more details on how this works, please see Control external messaging in a Yammer network with Exchange Transport Rules. If you don’t want to use Exchange Transport Rules to block users you will need to contact support to opt out from external messaging and groups.
Q: Our company has opted out of External Messaging. Can we still use External Groups?
A: Because external groups are built on the same architecture as external messaging, external messages must be enabled in order to receive the external groups capability.
Click here to learn more.