Yammer today announced major updates for its apps that focus on localization. The Web client now supports 28 languages, mobile apps now support 12 languages, and the Android and iOS apps now offer message translation powered by Microsoft Translator.
First up, the Yammer Web client has been updated with an option to select your preferred primary language, the default is “English (US).” You can find the language picker in the bottom of the right pane under “Company Resources” on your home page or under “Access Options” in a group, or in the footer of every page that doesn’t support infinite scrolling.
The 28 supported languages are as follows: Arabic, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (US), Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish, Romanian, Ukrainian, Spanish, Swedish, and Thai.
The Yammer sign-up flow as well as public pages (including home and login pages) have been localized as well. This includes right-to-left message support for Arabic and Hebrew:
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The Yammer Success Site also supports the same 28 languages; you can switch languages from the blue language selector at the bottom of the page. Microsoft says all success site content is localized except for “the integrations resources, certain pre-existing training materials such as videos, and the release schedule.”
The Windows (Yammer Notifier), Android (phone and tablet), and iOS (Yammer for iPhone and iPad, Yammer Now for iPhone) apps have been updated with localization as well. If you change your phone’s language preference, the Yammer app will automatically render in the corresponding language setting.
The 12 supported languages are as follows: Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Dutch, English (US), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.
Last but certainly not least, message translation on Android and iOS means that whenever a Yammer conversation includes a language different from the user’s default language setting, a translate button will appear below the initial post. Clicking translate will convert the entire conversation, including related responses, while clicking “show original text” will revert the conversation back.
Although the focus is clearly on language support, this is still a big update for Yammer. Even if you primarily communicate in English, you’ll probably want to grab the new versions at the links below.
See also – Microsoft adds Yammer to Office 365 Enterprise, introduces real-time co-authoring to its Web apps and Yammer updates all its apps: Android, iPhone, and iPad redesigned, Windows 8 and WP8 get better notifications
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