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- Does Microsoft have any materials created for socializing this change to our colleagues? Any talking points or decks we can use?
- We are working on publishing a rebrand kit! Should be published soon to the blog and the Viva Engage Adoption Center https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/engage/. Also highly recommend Melanie's blog post here - great tips to get started with! https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/still-dead-now-what-melanie-hohertz/?trackingId=7EhiGYg1R7Wf0LE7qkOuWQ%3D%3D
- I would be very interested in this too Katie. We use Yammer extensively and are keen not to lose any traction as a result of this change.
Hi team,
Here are some questions I've gathered from recent customer interactions that you may want to expand/clarify during the session or respond below pls...in no particular order;
1. Is there an additional charge for the list of new features in order to access such functionality as Leadership Corner and Answers features? - will these remain switched off/unavailable to all non premium Viva customers pls?
2. For all existing M365 license plan holders, will everything remain the same (e.g. Yammer as we know it today) and continue at the same pricing just under a new name, Viva Engage?
3. Still so much confusion between 'Stories' and 'storyline' - what to use when, why are both needed, can you switch on one and not an other?
4. Admin roles - Previously, as a network Verified admin, this particular customer assumed that they would have access to 'everything' - e.g. setting up the admin portal, accessing private communities, assigning new admins to existing communities etc but they have advised that this is not the case anymore - is there an up to date description of what each network role entails and which is the most suitable one to be assigned in order to carry out all internal network duties across the internal network pls?
- MichaelHolste
Microsoft
1. Yes, these new features are only available to with Viva suite licenses. 2. Yes, M365 customers will continue have access to the existing Yammer value with no price increase or licensing increases. 3. Our positioning and thinking around "stories" is shifting. We'll be focusing on storyline with media posts being a natural part of those posts but more to share soon. Users should post to their storyline when they want to share their thoughts, express themselves, amplify their work, share in a way that doesn't quite belong in a community or email. Leaders should use storyline to broadly share with their own voice. Stories is still in preview and we will make changes before GA. Admins can turn off storyline. 4. Yes, you can find all of the guidance relating to the new admin roles here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/engage/eac-key-admin-roles-permissions - Great questions...
Are there any plans for notifications in the Viva engage application in Teams, It would be great to get notification and notis in the app in a similare way messages etc in teams. (like you have 2 missed messeges)
- Paul_BarrHi! The Viva Engage app in Teams currently has its own notifications "bell" and the Inbox icon in the top right portion of the Engage app UX. This is where people can catch up on recent activity relevant for them. We are also adding notifications for certain Engage activity into the Teams Activity "bell", so people will see a badge on that bell with an unread count when they have received a Storyline Announcement, when they have activity in an AMA event, when they are mentioned by another person, when Storyline posts made by people they follow, etc. Overtime we will grow and refine these Teams activity notifications. There are not currently plans to give the Engage App Icon in the Teams bar its own unread activity count, mostly due to limitations in that functionality being exposed to all applications. We will take this feedback into consideration as we revisit that capability. Thank you.
- Yes please!! This is the number one piece of feedback we have had from colleagues since surfacing Viva Engage in the Teams side bar....we're trying to reduce email and therefore loads of email notifications isn't what people want, unless it's an announcement it's just annoying them, they just want a notifications style nudge with a red dot on the Teams side bar to let them know there's something to go in and view in Viva Engage...just like they do with Teams Chat
emilywangHi Juliet, definitely! We are working on a more refined approach of which types of notifications should appear as an email (i.e. an important Announcement) vs. going into other channels (i.e. Teams, Viva Engage Bell), so we will continue to update our customers as we work through these changes and updates. Thanks for your patience!
- The announcements mentioned that there are UI/UX changes coming to Viva Engage on the Web. I implore the team to not wreck the current model of interacting with communities that we enjoy on Yammer web and which is significantly more difficult in Viva Engage within Teams. Or, at the very least, please have the collapsible communities panel opened by default.
- Completely agree Kevin, I encourage businesses to deploy the Viva Engage app in Teams but I only deliver Yammer training to end users using the Web version as I find it much more straight forward to navigate and teach and the feedback has always been so positive!
- Thank you for mentioning this, Kevin. I fully agree: The Yammer web interface objectively works a lot better than the Viva Engage interface. The fact that in Viva Engage there are two separate communities panels - one open by default but not expandable to all your communities and another that you first have to open manually but which at least lets you see all of your communities - does not make any sense from a usability perspective.
- Seconding Kevin here! It's also important that people can easily find the URL of any asset, whether it's a conversation or a community. I have always trained key stakeholders like admins and communicators that everything in Yammer has a unique URL. That means you can embed a link to a community in a FAQ, or a hack I've always loved: email a list of 3-5 linked conversations weekly to a leader for them to jump in and make an impact via this curated list.
- We have links to Yammer posts and communities everwhere. When the URL changes will those links still work or will everything be broken? If there is a redirect how long will it work for?
- MuraliSitaramWe will make sure that embedded URLs remain backward compatible. No action is required on your end. We will ensure that the redirect works period.
- EmilyPerina
Community Manager
Welcome to the Microsoft Viva Engage Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA)! This live hour gives you the opportunity to ask questions directly to the Microsoft team. Please post any questions in a separate, new comment thread on this event. Thanks!
- espnguyenWelcome to our Viva Engage AMA! I'm Steve Nguyen, Principal Program Manager with the Viva Engage team. We'll try to answer as many questions as we can!
- Hi! I am working with the Viva Engage marketing and adoption team supporting customers. I've been on the Yammer journey for a long time and love seeing the familiar names. Thanks for your questions!
- KaleemRahman
Hi everyone, my name is Kaleem and I'm leading some of the product management efforts for Answers in Microsoft Viva. I look forward to your questions and discussion here ☺️
- jamestyerThank-you all for joining. Great questions so far! I'm James Tyer, on the Viva Engage Customer Engagement team. Welcome everyone 🙂
- Hi, can you tell us more about the Yammer algorithm? We find it difficult to understand why some posts are more popular than others (beyond the announcement).
fernandomartinezovelarHi we have a blog post where we go into the details of how the Home Feed works: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/yammer-blog/yammer-explained-how-the-feed-works/ba-p/2757489
- Might be helpful to have a one pager showing all the touch points with Viva Engage in the centre to the new features and interactions into Viva Topics and the other Viva modules -- if that's possible lol!
- KaleemRahmanHi Lesley, good to see you! Viva Topics play an important role in Viva Engage—both via Answers in Microsoft Viva and Communities. In Answers, topics provide the organizational unit to categorize questions. Each question requires being marked by a Viva Topic, and this serves as an important means to get new questions in front of people who may have the expertise to answer them. The concept of 'Follow' lets people indicate the kinds of topics they are interested in—further personalizing their experience. And an administrator can even decide which of the Viva Topics they want to enable within Answers for questions and answers. In Communities, topics continue to be available as a means to organize content for knowledge and learning. Moving forward, Viva Topics infrastructure will be used to enable the topics experiences in communities. With a premium Viva Topics license, features like topic cards will get enabled. With regards to a one-pager to show all the precise ways that Viva Engage interacts with all other Viva modules, I'll pass on that feedback to our team and see what we can do.
- Thanks Kaleem, a visual representation of the touch points would still be really helpful. Looking forward to seeing this and happy to sense check it before its made public with the MVP #VivaExplorers.
- This would be very helpful.
jeffa03How will the Yammer transition impact the SharePoint web part functionality? Rename of the webparts and potential reconfiguration?- espnguyenThe Yammer transition will mainly impact the name of the web part. We don't anticipate any functional changes to the web part itself.
- Fabulous!
- Jason_MayansWe are continuing to support these, and they will continue to work. The rename of these, and other integrations with Yammer, will come after we rename the core experiences (web, mobile).
- Is there a complete comparison of changes between yammer and viva? or like a video? Also, it is incremental changes, is there a timeline with milestones for these changes?
- danholmeViva Engage is the new name and experience for Yammer. All the features you know from Yammer remain available for all M365 customers. See https://danholme.substack.com/p/yammer-is-engaged-get-to-know-viva for details. Last week, we just introduced new features available for Microsoft Viva customers: https://danholme.substack.com/p/viva-engage-features-for-leaders So "video" is the same in Viva Engage as it was in Yammer. But stay tuned--we've got GREAT new experiences coming.
- Are there any changes in how we manage security roles in viva?
