Yammer Group Analytics
Great trajectory and direction… but there’s so much left to be desired and is really telling to be honest. The opportunity is far greater than what is envisioned here. If you want to skip to the spoiler on what the magnitude of this initiative could be jump to the Community and Culture Measures section.
The announcement, which mentions more than just Yammer, landed on the Office 365 blog portion of the Microsoft Tech Community today. I checked in my org’s Admin Center today and didn’t find the report there yet.

Community managers will be glad this is available. However, they will likely not be O365 Admins so they will need to request that this report be exported from the Admin Center. Certainly not ideal but will not typically be a frequently repeated activity. (UPDATE: I should have mentioned Microsoft has committed to carving out a new report reader role to remedy this very situation.) This report will aid in identifying relative size and activity of groups in their network. I’d love to see this surface in the product itself. It used to be there a long time ago and free for all to enjoy. The liked and read counts are nice additions though.
Low Hanging Fruit
Now for the insights not included in this new report.
- Response rates. As a community manager or group owner, I’d love to know what the average turn around time is for a given group. How many posts go untouched / never receive a reply? I’ll be the first to admit that not ever post warrants or deserves (or is worthy of) a reply. But response rate would assist in gauging whether we’ve cultivated a compelling enough cause where dialogue is fostered and flourishing.
- Top posts. Which posts garner the most attention? Why? Is there a pattern emerging? I don’t even get close with these aggregate activity counts.
- Best times to post. Community managers would *love* to see what day and hour are most active in a group.
- Activity over time. This appears to be an aggregate snapshot of a moment in time rather than a trend I can analyze and recommend interventions or amplification. Key moments might be lost without these indicators.
- Influencers. Group owners benefit greatly from knowing who the “regulars” are.
Enough from me. What are your reporting needs? Does this help you identify investment areas? Are you augmenting your reporting needs today? What are the metrics you can’t live without?
Community and Culture Measures
I also wonder about the measures not present and what they can tell us. Reviewing a recent post from Rachel Happe made me wonder “Who is helping community managers score *engagement* in Yammer well?” This goes beyond aggregate activity in mind and may very well align with the frameworks or working out loud #WOL or theCR’s Community Engagement Framework. Borrowing liberally from the article…
Communities, managed well, are the mechanisms to establish and extend social trust, which is required for broad and deep engagement.

By measuring what percentage of a community is exhibiting each of these behaviors (Validating, Sharing Asking & Answering, Exploring) and in what volume, you can see how passive, reactive, open or proactive the culture is.
One day not too distant, we will better realize the truth of this statement:
Community managers hold the key to helping organizations change behaviors and with it, cultures — and in ways that are sustainable and efficient.
Until that day, community managers will find a way, with or without reports or analytics, to accelerate cultural change to a brighter future.
BONUS: I slept on these thoughts and realized we have Seeing AI to “narrate the world around [us].” We’ve worked with text analysis for much longer to prevent terrorist attacks among other uses. Why is there not an app / service that understands community interactions (assuming the entire network doesn’t communicate entirely in GIFs!) and can code or label them according to a framework? I see this happening to some extend with the Deepmoji (artificial emotional intelligence) project today. What offerings on the horizon are most promising for your community efforts?
