Some organizations have already rolled out chatter, but just in case if you are planning to roll it out soon and if would want some customizations to be done on top of just enabling Chatter, then you may want to have a look at the below article.
The New User Interface Theme:
As you may be aware of, Chatter works only with the new User Interface theme of Salesforce. So, you will have to enable it first before you go on and turn on Chatter.
SetUp --> App SetUp --> Customize --> User Interface
Enabling Chatter:
The next step is to enable Chatter. This can be done by going to SetUp -->App SetUp --> Customize --> Chatter --> Settings
You may optionally turn on Chatter Emails. When you turn this on, salesforce automatically sends emails to users whenever some activity happens within Chatter. It is up to the user to turn on/off his specific email notifications.
Some Administrative tips:
As an administrator you have access to certain fields through the API which allows you to restrict/enable options for individual users of Chatter throughout your organization. Some of them are listed below.
Object : User
Field : DigestFrequency - This field allows you to specify the frequency in which users get digest emails from Salesforce Chatter. Possible values are
- N
- D
- W
N stands for Never, D for Daily, W for Weekly. Doing a mass update to all user records using the Apex Data Loader would set the option specified for every user.
Object : User
Field : UserPreferencesDisableAutoSubForFeeds - As the name suggests, disables automatically following records you own. Possible values are
- TRUE - disable auto follow
- FALSE - enable auto follow
Object: CollaborationGroup
This object is used to store Chatter groups. You may use the Apex Data Loader to mass create groups by inserting records into this object.
Fields:
Name : The name for this group
OWNERID : The ID of the User who owns this group.
COLLABORATIONTYPE : Private or Public
Object: CollaborationGroupMember
This object is used to store the members for a group. You can mass add/remove members to Chatter groups using the Apex Data Loader.
NOTE: Salesforce automatically sends out an email notification to the person being added. To avoid this, turn OFF Chatter Emails , add members to the group and then TURN ON Chatter Emails.
Fields:
COLLABORATIONGROUPID: ID of the Chatter Group
MEMBERID : ID of the User.
NOTIFICATIONFREQUENCY : N (Never) / D (Daily) / W (Weekly)