Yammer has added Universal Search to its enterprise social networking platform, promising it can access business data from any enterprise application utilising Yammer's existing Activity Stream API.

Records and content are searchable from Salesforce.com, SAP and Microsoft SharePoint, while selection of a third-party record in search opens that system in a separate tab.

Yammer says the API contains features to respect the permissions of the underlying applications so that only employees authorised to view a record can find it.

Search results are type-ahead based on a relevance algorithm individual to each user and categorised into people, groups, files, Pages, topics and applications.

Files, Pages and conversations are full-text searchable.

"Existing enterprise search systems typically crawl and index all of the information behind the firewall but cannot access data behind the login walls of cloud applications. As more and more data moves to the cloud, a new approach is needed," said Yammer founder and CEO David Sacks.

"Universal Search demonstrates the power of the Yammer platform to be the common communication, discovery and collaboration layer across business applications."

Yammer’s Premium Groups team workspace now has increased file storage limits and advanced admin controls, such as the ability to:Change group privacy settings; Mark content as official and read-only; Make group announcements; and Delete any member's messages, files and Pages.

Yammer has added two new features to make it easier to share content both internally and externally:
- A Share button allows conversations, files and Pages to be cross-posted from one group to another or to start a private message about a file, Page or conversation.
- An Email File button enables employees to email third-parties such as customers and partners a secure, one-time URL to view a file or Page. The link cookies the recipient's browser and can only be used once to ensure that only the intended recipient can view the content. Viewing rights can be revoked at any time, making it significantly more secure than email. In addition, a group or network admin can enable or disable external sharing.