Forum Discussion
Trimming Viva Engage default “All Company” community membership
Hey
Question/problem statement:
I’m looking in if there is a possibility of trimming the Viva Engage default “All Company” community membership list/count?
Background:
We have a lot of “external/contractors” that are fully O365 E3 licensed, and it also semes disable user if still with in the count (this is just a speculation), that we wish to remove from the membership list/count.
My thoughts:
Is the trimming the membership count just removing the Viva Engage Core (but all so removing the “external/contractors” access, which is fine)
Or is it at all possible to trim the member list?
There isn't a way to trim users from the "All Company" community. But you can use a dynamic group and an exclusionary conditional access policy to restrict the usage of Viva Engage. The challenge lies in the fact that those contractors still need the E3 license, just not the Viva Engage feature. So, while group-based licensing would normally work, it won't in your case.
Your dynamic rule can have multiple conditions that define the membership automatically.
For example: "user email ends with" could include approved users only, filtering out domain accounts that are not meant to use Engage. Depending on your user properties, this could be a viable solution.
Change Static Groups to Dynamic Membership Groups - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn
Building Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn
Caution: Do not delete the "All Company" group as it may be a challenge to restore it. I've seen the fallout from this mistake and it's a messy recovery.
Hope this helps!
-Rob
4 Replies
This is one reason why we put All Company into restricted posting mode (admins only) and then created a traditional community that we use for company news, etc. The membership is autopopulated based on employee type, so contractors aren't auto-added.
Additionally, this allows our comms professionals to manage the community to do announcements and such - but doesn't require that they become Engage admins.Great suggestion! I've done this before. The only challenge I find with some tenants is that user data is not clean enough for this strategy and dynamic M365 groups rely on a clean and accurate user directory.
Otherwise, it's a great workaround!
There isn't a way to trim users from the "All Company" community. But you can use a dynamic group and an exclusionary conditional access policy to restrict the usage of Viva Engage. The challenge lies in the fact that those contractors still need the E3 license, just not the Viva Engage feature. So, while group-based licensing would normally work, it won't in your case.
Your dynamic rule can have multiple conditions that define the membership automatically.
For example: "user email ends with" could include approved users only, filtering out domain accounts that are not meant to use Engage. Depending on your user properties, this could be a viable solution.
Change Static Groups to Dynamic Membership Groups - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn
Building Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra - Microsoft Entra ID | Microsoft Learn
Caution: Do not delete the "All Company" group as it may be a challenge to restore it. I've seen the fallout from this mistake and it's a messy recovery.
Hope this helps!
-Rob
Good advice, RBAC - i was going to write exactly what you put; Entra and group memberships. but you got there 1st!!
