How do you get Yammer to treat registered app as a user

Question

In messaging platforms like Slack and HipChat you can integrate apps that can post messages to groups without them being sent from a user e.g.

Defect Management System: A new defect was logged at 12pm

Instead of:

John Smith: A new defect was logged at 12pm

Is it possible to do the same thing in Yammer?

Answer 1

There are two options available for you:

1 - You can create a new user on Yammer, name it however you want (e.g., "Defect Management System" with a snazzy avatar), then take the user's OAUTH token and use it to impersonate that user programmatically. This is fine for quick development.

2 - You can create a new user on Yammer, name it however you want, then register a new app on Yammer to get a permanent token and client ID, then use those to impersonate that user programmatically. This is the right way to do it. You can read more about how to do this on https://developer.yammer.com/introduction/#gs-registerapp.

This is an example of a user that we impersonate. It is a bot on our network. It is a separate account in AD and is registered as an app in Yammer and interacts with Yammer automatically.