Yammer

Welcome to Yammer. Our goal is to provide a collaborative environment to connect with colleagues and bridge our departments and geographic locations to share meaningful information.

Your activity in this network is governed by the Social Media Policy and the following requirements and notices should be understood.

• everything in Yammer stays in Yammer (no public posts on social media, etc.)
• do not post confidential information into the main feed. Only publicly available information can be disclosed, do not post personal or official - sensitive information relating to Council business
• we all have a responsibility to protect council data, so if you do see any personal or official sensitive information posted or you think someone has received something they shouldn’t have contact your line manager and email dataprotection@scotborders.gov.uk. Yammer admins will delete any such information
• be polite and respectful to other members. It is acceptable to disagree, but please do so in a respectful manner. What's said here is visible to your lecturers, employer, line manager, colleagues and peers. Please keep it professional
• add value with each post
• do not post any political statements
• if you are posting a photo/video you must ensure you have permission from the individuals included in the image/video
• should you be informed that a party no longer wishes their photo to be displayed or you yourself wish a photo to be removed please contact the appropriate group admin (Group Admins can be identified by clicking on the number of members in a group and they will have (Admin) under their name in this list)
• you are responsible for the material you post to Yammer
• where there is a legal reason to do so, please be aware admins on Yammer have access to private content posted
• Yammer will be monitored for any abusive language used by way of ‘key word’ detection. This will be reported to Comms in the first instance who will then report into line managers and HR
• we keep your information safe. Yammer is hosted on the Office365 cloud service and is securely held by Microsoft. Please note that with the cloud you cannot guarantee deletion
• information posted on Yammer is attributed to the individual and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Scottish Borders Council. Any official Council announcements should be made through standard communication channels and not linked back to content stored on Yammer. Information posted on Yammer will be subject to Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOI(S)A), Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EI(S)R), General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 – this means that members of the public can ask for information held about Council activities (FOI(S)A/EI(S)R) or if an individual requests their own information under Data Protection. Members of staff can also make these requests on Yammer

Communities

• only internal communities will be operated at present. This may change once Yammer is more established
• if you want to create a community, name it carefully – there's lots of other communities out there
• only create a community if you really need it
• Scottish Borders Council withholds the right to remove any communities it deems unsuitable or offensive

Get started by following these best practices

• when you first join, click on discover communities and join communities that you find relevant. If a specific community does not exist, start a new one and invite members of your team to contribute. You can also select the colleagues you want to follow. Posts from these colleagues will appear in your feed
• we suggest you add a profile picture, this enhances communication
• customise your email preferences by clicking on your profile picture, settings and then ‘Email me when…’ Tip – you will get a notification on Yammer so you may wish to switch all email notifications off
• before asking a question, use the search bar to explore existing content. This will help limit repetitive messages
• add links, pictures, and events to posts when applicable
• use the Yammer FAQs and How To Guide to help clarify common concerns
• take time to explore Yammer. You'll get the hang of it, it’s really similar to other social media platforms

If you do require additional support, post a question to the MASS (Microsoft Advice and Support Service) Community page.

Inappropriate posts should be directed to your line manager in the first instance.

Visit Microsoft’s support page for Yammer help and learning.