It has been more than a year of testing of ‘Facebook at Work’ and consumers were waiting eagerly to get their hands on this unique service from Facebook. Finally, the company has announced the service, with a new name tag.
Called Workplace by Facebook, the service will now be available to any company or organization that wants to use it. Facebook itself already had an internal app for the same that helped its employees connect with each other, and this paved the way for Workplace.
The Facebook blog mentions, “Now, more than 1,000 organizations around the world use Workplace (formerly known as Facebook at Work). People have created nearly 100,000 groups and the top five countries using Workplace are India, the US, Norway, UK and France. We’re excited by the progress we’ve made and the level of adoption and engagement we’re seeing.”
It is interesting to see that India figures in the top 5 countries using Workplace, and this is definitely a positive sign of growth. This service is available to any company that wants to use it and replace the boring e-mail communication and chat system.
What is so special about Workplace?
Basically, Workplace is Facebook at your office or wherever you are working. It is an equivalent of Facebook we use in our lives, with a few cherries on top. Not only can you create specific groups, but also have live videos, messenger chats and regular updates to voice out your opinions.
Large multinational companies like Danone, Starbucks and Booking.com, international nonprofits such as Oxfam, and regional leaders such as YES Bank in India and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore have all been using Workplace.
There will be a news feed on Workplace, the ability to create and share in groups or in chat. Facebook’s live video, reactions, search and trending posts will also feature in Workplace. This is extremely helpful for companies that have worldwide offices and require quick telephony and video conferencing services without all the hassles.
The service also has a dashboard with analytics and integrations with single sign-on, in addition to identity providers that allow companies to more easily integrate Workplace with their existing IT systems.
Workplace Multi-company groups is a unique idea
Facebook also announced Multi-Company Groups, shared spaces that allow employees from different organizations to work together, to extend collaboration beyond one’s company in a safe and secure way. These will be rolling out to all customers in the coming weeks.
So if someone from Samsung wants to know something about how LG is working on a problem, this is the best place to do that. Not sure if this will be effective or not, and whether people will actually share their ideas but it is an interesting feature to look out for.
There might be legal and compliance issues for a lot of companies, but I believe major tech giants in the Silicon Valley might actually benefit from this feature. Employees usually move from one startup to another, and this might be a good way to distribute knowledge across organisations.
Deloitte will be working with Facebook to scale operations in companies across the globe. The consultants will be training employees and companies on this and bring more organisations under Workplace’s umbrella.
Pricing details of Workplace
Facebook has offered a 3-month trial for companies with $3 for every user upto 1,000 monthly users, $2 for every user upto 10,000 monthly users and $1 post 10,000 active monthly users. All of the below features will be offered as a part of the package –
- Unlimited file, photo, and video storage
- Unlimited team and project groups
- Live video streaming
- Monitoring tools for IT teams
- 1:1 support for administrators
- Secure collaboration between companies
- Single-sign on (SSO) support
- Integration with G Suite, Okta, OneLogin, Ping, Windows Azure AD
Workplace will be free for Non-profits and educational institutions, but we don’t know how useful it will be for such organisations. However, for large companies, and even smaller ones, this seems to be a good way for employees to not feel left-out in this age of social media, while also making office a productive place.
Source: Facebook newsroom
