Pick the primary domain when activating Yammer on an Office 365 tenant

This content is 9 years old. I don't routinely update old blog posts as they are only intended to represent a view at a particular point in time. Please be warned that the information here may be out of date.

One of the challenges with working with Office 365 for a living is that it now offers a pretty broad range of services. I work in a unified communications and messaging team (think Skype for Business and Exchange) but I also need to know about:

  • Windows identity topics including Active Directory (AD), Azure Active Directory (AAD), Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS).
  • Windows server roles/features like Web Application Proxy as well as the obvious infrastructure services candidates (DNS, etc.).
  • SharePoint – if not to set up site collections etc. then at least to manage OneDrive for Business.
  • Office – integration of office apps – desktop and mobile.
  • Yammer

(…and the list goes on)

Yammer can be challenging, partly because it’s still fairly loosely-coupled to Office 365, but also because it keeps changing (as do all of the Office 365 services, I guess).  Last week I was working with a customer who had several domain names on their Office 365 tenant and who wanted to bring them together in Yammer.  Unfortunately I’d already activated Yammer Enterprise on their Office 365 tenant, using the domain name for one of their subsidiary companies and you only get one shot at the initial activation.

After raising a service request, we were directed to a Microsoft Office support page on consolidating multiple Yammer networks… but any subsequent moves will result in data loss – which is why it’s important to pick the primary network when activating Yammer (you can export the data, but often the Yammer networks are unmanaged, informal networks created by employees outside the control of the IT department). I’m hopeful that Microsoft will be able to switch the primary network for us before merging the networks.

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