What is Microsoft Viva? Should My Company Be Using The Microsoft Viva …

As Microsoft 365 consultants, since the release of the Microsoft Viva tools we have been bombarded with enquiries into what is Microsoft Viva and if you should adopt the Microsoft Viva tools into your business. In this article, we will explore the purpose and use cases of Microsoft Viva. We will look at the current applications, what’s in store for the future, and how it can be implemented into your organisation’s current tools. So you can decide if you should be using these tools in your company.

Understanding Microsoft Viva: A Revolution in Employee Experience

Microsoft Viva represents a paradigm shift in how organisations approach employee engagement and productivity. It’s a platform that aims to foster a more connected, engaged, and productive workforce by leveraging the power of Microsoft 365 and Teams. At its core, Microsoft Viva is designed to:

1. Enhance Employee Experience: Microsoft Viva prioritises the well-being and productivity of employees. It provides a digital platform where employees can thrive, stay connected, and access the resources they need.

2. Improve Communication: Viva breaks down communication barriers by centralising information and fostering collaboration through integrations with Microsoft Teams.

3. Promote Learning and Development: It offers tools and resources for continuous learning and skills development, helping employees stay relevant in today’s fast-paced world.

This is all achieved through a number of apps, that can be added to your companies Microsoft Teams.

Current Microsoft Viva Applications

As of now, Microsoft Viva consists of a few interconnected modules or applications:

1. Viva Connections: This app serves as your organisation’s intranet and gateway to company news, policies, and resources. It ensures that employees have easy access to essential information, fostering a sense of belonging and engagement. This intranet does not replace SharePoint, but surfaces your current SharePoint intranet through Microsoft Teams.

2. Viva Insights: Viva Insights empowers employees and managers to strike the right balance between work and well-being. It provides personalised insights, recommendations, and data-driven suggestions to help users manage their time and prioritize tasks effectively.

3. Viva Learning: With the rapid pace of change in the business world, continuous learning is essential. Viva Learning offers a platform where employees can discover, share, and access learning content, whether it’s internal training materials or external courses.

4. Viva Topics: Viva Topics leverages AI to organise and connect content across your organisation, making it easier for employees to find relevant information quickly. It helps create a knowledge-sharing culture that’s central to successful modern workplaces.

The Microsoft Viva Newcomers

5. Viva Engage: The predecessor for Yammer, Viva Engage provides a corporate social network, designed to provide collaboration and communication for company employees. Like Yammer, it acts as a companies internal social network, whilst integrating with other corporate tools.

6. Viva Glint: Previously part of LinkedIn, Glint provides a “voice for the employee”. Providing organisations a chance to understand their employees through employee feedback. Part of a number of tools in the ’employee listening market’, Glint is used to receive and make sense of opinions within the company.

7. Viva Pulse: Part of the Microsoft Viva suite for managers and leaders to quickly get feedback from their team, then take action on that. More project based than Glint, Pulse allows managers to get quick and precise updates.

8. Viva Goals: A great new introduction to Microsoft Viva. Viva Goals aligns the entire organisation from the top down, in terms of their goals and priorities and makes sure all employees are working to the same mission.

FAQ’s: Is Microsoft Viva Replacing SharePoint? Is Microsoft Viva Replacing Yammer?

SharePoint: The short answer to the question ‘is Microsoft Viva replacing SharePoint?’ is, no. Microsoft doesn’t have any plans to replace SharePoint with any of its new applications and SharePoint continues to be the core platform in the Microsoft suite. If anything, a lot of the new apps being introduced by Microsoft are built to work around SharePoint as the fundamental element to the suite.

Yammer: The short answer to the question ‘is Microsoft Viva replacing Yammer?’ is, yes. The Yammer web experience has now been rebranded to Viva Engage and will be slowly moving the Yammer features to Viva Engage.

FAQ’s: Can Other Apps be Included in Microsoft Viva?

Microsoft has ambitious plans for Viva, with upcoming enhancements and new applications to further elevate the employee experience. While the exact roadmap may evolve, Microsoft a promise more apps to come shortly and also further features to the current apps.

Although Microsoft Viva is a fixed set of apps released specifically by Microsoft, this platform has been cleverly designed to be included within Teams, and Teams does allow customised apps. As a team of software developers, we have developed many custom apps using Teams as the user interface. See below some examples of apps we have built within Teams, to work hand-in-hand with the Microsoft Viva suite:

Implementing Microsoft Viva

If you are planning to implement Microsoft Viva, our Microsoft consultancy services can help you get started. With our expertise and knowledge of Microsoft Viva and the entire Microsoft 365 suite, we can help you plan, implement and train staff on getting started with the new employee experience platform. Contact us to arrange a free consultation, to find out how we can help.

View our full Microsoft Viva services here