Notification Experience in Viva Engage

Our company has recently adopted Viva Engage, and we've been receiving a lot of feedback from our users regarding the notification system, particularly around how it affects their ability to stay informed without being overwhelmed. We have also noticed a significant reduction in engagement from users since moving from WorkPlace to Viva Engage.

Here are the main concerns we've encountered:

1. Users who have email notifications enabled are receiving far too many alerts. Many have expressed a desire to receive email notifications only for new posts, not for every comment or reply.
2. Those who have turned off email notifications often forget to check Viva Engage because the only way to see new activity is to manually open the app and check
   • The app icon doesn’t show any indication of new activity. We have not adopted using the announcement feature and we don't intend to as:
     • Only defined community specialists and admins are allowed to use this feature  and we do not want to make every employee a specialist/admin for every Engage Community
     • It requires people to remember to use the feature for every new post
   • There are no pop-up notifications like in Microsoft Teams.
3. The counter in Viva Engage shows updates for both new posts and comments, which many users find distracting. They would prefer to have the option to see in-app counters only for new posts, not for every interaction.

I have seen people suggest the following workaround: manually unfollowing each post to avoid comment notifications. This solution is not scalable or user-friendly IMO. A more elegant solution would be to reverse the logic: users should only receive comment notifications if they choose to follow a post.

Suggested Improvements:

• Add granular notification settings (e.g., toggle for “new posts only” vs. “all activity”).
• Introduce pop-up notifications for new posts, similar to Teams.
• Allow users to follow posts only if they want updates, rather than being auto-subscribed.
• Improve visual indicators on the app icon to show unread activity.

We believe these changes would significantly improve the user experience and help drive engagement without overwhelming users. Has anyone else faced similar issues? Would love to hear your thoughts or if Microsoft has any updates planned in this area.

Thanks!