In Yammer 104 I wrote about how Yammer can be an all-purpose GTD reference filing system, and not just for individuals but for a company. You can write relatively brief posts about a topic, and can include hyperlinks to external Web sites or to intranet pages.
But what if the information you want to share is in the form of a document, not a Web site URL?
After my return from the Thanksgiving weekend, and as I was posting something to my personal journal in Yammer, I noticed an interesting feature that provides a great answer to this question:
An “Attach File” icon was at the lower left of the text box! So I decided to upload a document to another group I’ve formed, for our Social Media Team. And here’s what that Yammer post looks like:
So my team members can just click the link to the attachment and download the PDF I posted. I don’t need to send the PDF as an email attachment, but my team members know the document is there to be reviewed if they want to download it.
This is a really well-done feature, with an interface that matches the conventions we’ve come to expect for uploading files. And it makes a significant step toward making Yammer the all-purpose knowledge-sharing service for the enterprise.
The updated version of Yammer’s iPhone application supports viewing the attachments that are included in Yammer posts. That’s well integrated, too, although I couldn’t view Word documents as I can within the iPhone Mail application. But for viewing PDFs it was fine.
I uploaded a few different file types as a test: PDF, Word (.doc) and even a couple of mp3 files. The largest file I tried was 18 MB, and it worked flawlessly. Maybe the Yammer team can fill us in on the file types that are supported, and any size limitations.
But meanwhile, if you haven’t yet tried Yammer, I’d encourage you to explore it, and the SMUG Yammer curriculum can be your step-by-step guide. I’m impressed at the way Yammer is continually improving its product and adding important and useful features.
2 Comments
Lee,
Thanks for yet another great post. The Yammer Team enjoys reading all of them. Of course they’re distributed to the team via our very own Yammer network. To answer your question, you can attach any type of file as long as it is 20 MB or less. Images are (JPG, PNG, GIF) and every other attachment is classified as a File. You can read more about the Attachment feature here:
http://blog.yammer.com/blog/2008/11/new-attachments-feature-share-images-and-files.html
As always, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please let us know.
Thank you,
Keith
The Yammer Team
Lee:
I’ve just started up a Yammer group — and referred everyone to your SMUG curriculum, by the way — and like the option of including attachments, including .mp3 files.
I’m wondering if you’ve ever found whether there’s a limit on attachments?
Thanks!
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