It’s been over a year since the new Employee Experience Platform – Viva was unveiled by Microsoft. Since the initial announcement on the 4th of February 2021, four Viva modules – Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Topics, and Viva Learning are all generally available. Later this year, Microsoft is planning to add another module – a new Viva-based objective and key results (OKRs) service backed by a recent acquisition of Ally.io.
This is the first blog in my series of blogs about Viva and individual Viva modules. This blog focuses on Viva overview and Connections. Future blogs will cover other modules and will include some practical advice based on our experience implementing Viva with our clients.
- Microsoft Viva – Introduction and Connections (this blog)
- Microsoft Viva – Learning
- Microsoft Viva – Insights
- Microsoft Viva – Topics
What is Microsoft Viva?
Microsoft Viva is a suite of solutions. It brings together communications (Connections), knowledge (Topics), learning resources (Learning) and productivity and wellbeing insights (Insights). Combined together, Viva delivers a modern employee experience platform deeply integrated within existing Microsoft Apps.
How is Microsoft Viva licensed?
Some Viva features are included with Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans where others require add-on or a dedicated license. Below is a breakdown of features included with Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans and those which are licensed separately.
| Feature | Included in Microsoft 365 Enterprise license? |
|---|---|
| Viva Connections (Teams App, the Dashboard, the Feed and the Resources) | Yes |
| Viva Learning | |
| Viva Learning in Microsoft Teams | Yes |
| Access full Microsoft Learn and Microsoft 365 Training libraries and the top 125 LinkedIn Learning courses | Yes |
| Search, share, and chat about learning content | Yes |
| Create learning tabs in Teams channels | Yes |
| Organisation-generated learning content with SharePoint and Viva Learning | Yes |
| Course recommendations and progress tracking | No (requires separate license) |
| Integration with partner content providers | No (requires separate license) |
| Integration with learning management systems | No (requires separate license) |
| Viva Insights | |
| Personal insights in Teams | Yes |
| Viva Insights add-in and inline suggestions in Outlook | Yes |
| Your daily briefing email | Yes |
| Your monthly digest email and personal insights dashboard | Yes |
| Manager insights for leading strong teams | No (requires separate license) |
| Leader insights for seeing trends across the enterprise | No (requires separate license) |
| Custom analysis tools and accelerators | No (requires separate license) |
| Viva Topics | |
| Search connectors (index items) | No (requires separate license) |
| Expertise finding | No (requires separate license) |
| Topic cards, pages, and centres | No (requires separate license) |
| Topic highlights in SharePoint, Office, and Microsoft Search | No (requires separate license) |
At the time of writing the individual Viva modules are priced at £3.00 user/month each. Microsoft Viva Suite license, which include all modules is currently priced at £6.80 user/month.
Viva Connections
Viva Connections was the first Viva module released by Microsoft. Connections add a company-branded app to Teams and bring together relevant news, conversations and resources.
Adding Connections Teams app is a relatively simple process but it does required a corporate landing site (SharePoint Online Home Site) to be created in advance.
Tip: Connections can be rolled out gradually to users via Teams app setup policies.
Connections is often described as “Intranet in Teams”. Although the “Intranet” part of Connections plays a substantial role in building the experience, Connections is much more than a traditional intranet built on SharePoint. The app is just one of the components in Connections. Alongside the app we also have the Dashboard, the Feed and The Resources.
The Dashboard
The Dashboard uses dynamic cards that employees can interact with to do things like complete simple tasks or review data. It’s a great way to push content specific to individual users and create a digital toolset, unique to each user.
The Dashboard comes with a number of built-in cards that allow simple integration with Tasks, Approvals, Shifts or adding a link through the Web link card. Custom cards with integration to other systems can be developed using adaptive cards and SharePoint Framework (SPFx).
Tip: The Adaptive Cards designer – https://adaptivecards.io/designer/ can help with building interactive and content-rich cards.
The Feed
Viva Connections Feed displays updates from Yammer, SharePoint news, and Stream. The Feed automatically shows information from across the organisation based on post-level targeting of the groups that employees belong to. To ensure that user see the most important corporate communications, individual messages can be promoted by using SharePoint’s News boost and Yammer’s “Featured” options.
The Resources
A list of links and resources curated by organisation and made available via global navigation. Using AAD groups, menu items in the global navigation can be targeted to specific audiences.
Since its launch, Connections has evolved into a suite of features that can help organisations to build a personalised employee destination. The capability of combining corporate communications with the content the user is interested in is fundamental to delivering a modern employee experience platform.
Thanks for reading and I hope that has been useful for you!
If you want to find out more, we have exclusive 1:1 demo’s currently taking place with our Viva experts and a FREE Viva whitepaper available for download.
Please also see our “A glance at Microsoft Viva” blog – A glance at Microsoft Viva – risual.
