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Roman_Handl
Copper Contributor
Jun 08, 2023

A question about licensing for the topics function in Viva Engage/Yammer

Approximately at the beginning of April of 2023 Microsoft announced in the message center that the topics in Yammer will be moved to Viva Topics. Microsoft also mentioned that there would be no change in the behaviour in Yammer unless there would be licenses for Viva Topics in the tenant.
Silly us, we had these licenses for some users, they were bought more than a year before the announcement of Microsoft. Nobody could have known then that there will be dependencies between Viva Topics and Yammer.
Now our users don't see topics in Yammer anymore, those who could create topics before, can't do this anymore because they have no Viva Topics license.
We asked Microsoft support, if we really have to have licenses for all of our users so that they can at least see the topics in Yammer again. There was no clear answer, we only got links to the Viva Topics documentation which was of no help
We could live with the nuisance, that those who create or manage topics, need a Viva Topics license. But what about those user who only need to see the topics.
In the Viva Topics settings is an option that the "Topic visibility" could be allowed for everyone:

Does someone know if we could activate this without needing licenses for Viva Topics for all of our users?

  • Unfortunately, you do need to have a license even to be able to see the Topics. I can see the frustration though with the impact to hashtags and definitely think it needs addressing for these scenarios.

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