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Microsoft has released new sample code that enables Salesforce users to message one another to carry on Yammer-based conversations without alt-tabbing.
“Yammer has developed a JavaScript SDK which allows you to easily integrate any Yammer feed to Salesforce with very few lines of code,” states a company tutorial that outlines the steps required to embed the Yammer social experience into Salesforce.
The multi-step process requires the creation of a Yammer App and a Saleforce Visualforce page; pasting and customizing code; and ultimately configuring an override so that the Yammer widget displays correctly. Only developers need apply, but the results can lead to improved collaboration, according to Adrianne Martinson, a product manager on the Microsoft Enterprise Social team.
“With the Yammer and Salesforce integration sample code solution, companies can work like a network to track the progress of accounts, opportunities, leads and campaigns within Salesforce, and collaborate with co-workers from any department using Yammer,” she said in a statement.
Of course, Salesforce has its own messaging component called Chatter. However, Microsoft argues that it may not always be up to the task.
While Yammer is based on the concept of users, groups and feeds, Salesforce instead relies on a CRM-centric setup composed of users, objects, records and feeds, according to Microsoft. “There is another layer of granularity with Chatter because it is forced to reference CRM data,” asserts the company in its documentation. “Chatter dictates the need for Salesforce, which isn’t always the best tool for everyone in your organization.”
Essentially, integrating Yammer allows Salesforce users to interact with non-users more seamlessly. “For instance, a Salesforce user can easily engage with colleagues that are not using CRM to get help [and] close a CRM opportunity,” said Martinson.
Yammer-Salesforce “demonstrates Yammer’s rich extensibility, including Embed widget and Open Graph feed that are provided natively by the Yammer API platform,” added Martinson. Dynamics CRM, Microsoft’s own CRM platform, already offers native Yammer integration, she noted.
The solution arrives less than a month after Microsoft and Salesforce embarked on a major strategic partnership.
In an example of “co-opetition” between big tech rivals, the companies announced plans to bolster interoperability between Salesforce’s popular cloud-based CRM platform and Microsoft’s Windows operating systems, Office productivity ecosystem and Azure cloud services.
Salesforce also pledged to expand its use of Microsoft’s SQL database and enlist Azure for development and testing activities pertaining to ExactTarget. Salesforce acquired ExactTarget, a cloud marketing specialist, in June 2013 for $2.5 billion.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the deal, the terms of which are under wraps, was born out of customer demand. He said a during a conference call that the companies’ mutual users “want to be able to work with Office 365, they want to be able to work with Excel, with Outlook, they want to work with all of Microsoft’s apps, and they want to be able to work with Salesforce.”