From Leadership Engagement, Town Halls to Communities: Put Viva Engage to Work at Comms Camp
The best way to learn Viva Engage is not by watching someone else publish another perfectly prepared demo post. It is by starting with a real communications challenge. Maybe you are planning a leadership campaign and want employees to do more than simply read an update. Perhaps you are trying to build a community with a clear purpose, improve an AMA, make a town hall part of an ongoing conversation, or understand what employee questions are telling you. Bring that challenge to Comms Camp, a free, hands-on workshop taking place October 12–13, 2026, at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. Comms Camp is designed for corporate communications teams and the IT, adoption, employee experience, and community partners who support them. Participants will use Viva Engage, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and practical agent patterns to turn real communications scenarios into reusable plans and workflows. Start with the outcome, not the feature Viva Engage can support leader visibility, employee conversation, community building, campaigns, events, and knowledge sharing. But successful communications programs rarely begin with a list of product features. They begin with questions: Who needs to understand or do something differently? What does meaningful participation look like? Which leader, community, or conversation can create trust? What should happen after employees respond? Which signals will tell us whether the communication worked? Where can AI help without replacing the communicator’s judgment? At Comms Camp, you will start with those questions and use Viva Engage as part of a practical communications plan. What you will work through The workshop takes participants through a complete communications scenario, from the original ask to activation and measurement. Choose your challenge and bring a scenario or select a sample. Define your audience, intended outcome, risks, and the action you want employees to take. Design the Viva Engage activation Determine how Viva Engage, Copilot and other Microsoft products can support the communication. Depending on your scenario, that could include: A leader or executive communication A community activation A campaign moment An AMA or event An employee prompt designed to encourage useful participation A follow-up plan that keeps the conversation moving Turn conversations into signals Publishing is not the finish line. Employee questions, comments, reactions, and event inputs can provide important context about what people understand, what remains unclear, and what should happen next. You will explore how to organize those signals into themes, actions, and a practical measurement approach. Share what you built Participants will share their developing playbooks, learn from one another, and get feedback they can apply when they return to their organizations. Explore Copilot and agent workflows Identify where AI could save time or improve consistency across planning, drafting, summarizing, and follow-up. You will also explore a simple communicator agent canvas for a repeatable workflow. AI can help make the work faster, but the communicator remains responsible for context, quality, tone, and final judgment. Use Copilot-supported prompts and peer feedback to turn a rough stakeholder request into a more focused communications brief. What you will take home Comms Camp is designed to create reusable outputs, not just inspiration. Depending on your chosen scenario, you can leave with: A strategic communications brief A Viva Engage activation plan Copilot prompts and workflows A leader communication, event, AMA, campaign, or community plan A communicator agent canvas A signal and measurement plan A reusable communications playbook You will also leave with ideas from other communicators who are navigating many of the same challenges, including channel complexity, leader visibility, responsible AI adoption, employee participation, and demonstrating impact. Who should attend? Comms Camp is intended for: Corporate and employee communications professionals Leader and executive communications teams Viva Engage community managers Change and adoption professionals Employee experience leaders IT partners supporting communications and communities Organizations may send multiple participants, and communications and technology partners are encouraged to attend together. Participants should have access to Microsoft 365 and Viva Engage. Microsoft 365 Copilot access is recommended. Register for Comms Camp in Redmond Join us October 12–13, 2026, at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington. The workshop is free, and registration is required. Explore the Comms Camp experience: https://adoption.microsoft.com/comms-camp Register directly for the Redmond Comms Camp: https://aka.ms/CommsCamp/Joinus Cannot join us in Redmond? Comms Camp is planned as a multi-city experience. Visit the Comms Camp site to learn when more locations are announced. Tell us where you want us to bring camp next! Bring the complicated ask, the half-built campaign, or the community challenge you have been meaning to tackle. We will help you turn it into something you can use. Learn. Share. Build.Build your own Engage Governance agent
The best governance guidance often comes from real conversations with customers: the questions they ask, the decisions they are working through, and the practices they have already built. And organizations already have the answers somewhere: an adoption deck, an admin guide, a community manager checklist, an acceptable use policy, or a launch plan. That is where a Governance for Viva Engage Agent can help. Grounded in Microsoft guidance and your organization’s approved materials, it can give admins, communicators, adoption leads, and community managers quick, practical answers without replacing the people who own governance. Give each source the right job Mix Microsoft guidance with your own approved materials but be clear about which source wins. Your internal governance and policy documents should be the authority for organization-specific decisions. Microsoft Learn explains admin capabilities and roles. Microsoft Support covers the end-user experience. Microsoft Adoption offers planning and adoption best practices. The agent should make approved guidance easier to use, not invent policy or replace the people accountable for it. Useful starting points: Viva Engage adoption Monday Masterclass: Viva Engage essentials Viva Engage admin center overview Get started with Viva Engage Overview of security and compliance To keep the agent useful and safe, define how it should treat each type of source. This prevents end-user help content from being mistaken for governance policy and helps IT teams understand which source should be used for each type of answer. Source type Use it for Authority level Internal governance and policy documents Tenant-specific rules, ownership model, escalation paths, community lifecycle decisions, and approved operating model Highest authority for organization-specific decisions Microsoft Learn admin documentation Admin capabilities, admin roles and responsibilities, admin center guidance, configuration surfaces, and security/compliance options Authoritative for admin capabilities and product administration Microsoft Support end-user documentation User-facing experiences, getting started, Teams app setup, posting, participation, and end-user help Authoritative for end-user product help, not governance policy Microsoft Adoption materials Adoption best practices, planning, launch readiness, community management, and success measurement Best-practice guidance for planning and adoption In the agent instructions, explicitly state that internal governance documents take precedence for organization-specific decisions, while Microsoft Learn and Microsoft Support explain product capabilities and user experiences. How to create the agent Microsoft Copilot Studio could be a good starter place because it lets you connect approved knowledge, define behavior, test responses, and control publishing. But the instructions below are intentionally builder-agnostic, so you can adapt them to the agent platform they already use. Copy-and-paste agent instructions You are the Governance for Viva Engage Agent for this organization. Your role is to help IT teams, Viva Engage admins, governance owners, adoption leads, corporate communications teams, and community managers understand how to plan, launch, manage, and govern Viva Engage. Use the connected knowledge sources as your primary source of truth. These may include Microsoft Viva Engage adoption materials, Microsoft end-user support documentation, Microsoft admin documentation, Viva Engage essentials guidance, and this organization's internal governance documentation. Source authority hierarchy: 1. Approved internal governance and policy documents are the source of truth for tenant-specific or organization-specific decisions. 2. Microsoft Learn admin documentation is the source of truth for admin capabilities, admin roles, admin responsibilities, configuration surfaces, security and compliance options, and Viva Engage admin center guidance. 3. Microsoft Support end-user documentation is the source of truth for user-facing experiences, basic usage, Teams app setup, posting, participation, and end-user help. 4. Microsoft Adoption materials are the source of truth for adoption best practices, planning, community management, launch readiness, and success measurement. 5. Do not treat end-user support documentation as governance policy. Use it to explain how the product works for users, not to decide organizational rules. Important Microsoft reference areas: - Viva Engage adoption guidance: https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/engage/ - Viva Engage essentials / Monday Masterclass content: https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/customer-hub/monday-masterclass-your-guide-to-the-viva-engage-essentials/ - End-user support documentation: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/engage/get-started-with-viva-engage - Admin support documentation / Engage admin center overview: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/engage/eac-overview - Admin roles and responsibilities are especially important when answering governance, operating model, ownership, and escalation questions. You can help users with: - Viva Engage governance planning - Community creation standards - Community ownership and admin roles - Community lifecycle management - Moderation and healthy conversation guidance - Acceptable use guidance - Launch readiness - Adoption planning - Measurement and success metrics - Escalation paths - IT operating model considerations - Admin roles and responsibilities - End-user setup and participation guidance when it supports governance or adoption planning - Guidance for leaders, community managers, and champions When answering: - Be practical, concise, and structured. - Assume the audience is technical or IT-adjacent unless told otherwise. - Reference the relevant source material when possible. - Distinguish between Microsoft best practices, Microsoft admin capability documentation, Microsoft end-user help, and the organization's own policies. - Do not invent tenant-specific rules, policy decisions, dates, licensing terms, compliance requirements, or admin settings. - If the answer depends on the customer's tenant configuration, licensing, legal requirements, HR policy, compliance posture, or internal governance model, say so clearly. - Recommend that users validate final decisions with the appropriate internal owner, such as IT, compliance, legal, HR, corporate communications, or the Viva Engage governance team. - Do not provide legal, HR, regulatory, or compliance advice. Use these as suggested prompts: What governance decisions should we make before launching Viva Engage? What roles are needed to govern Viva Engage? What should IT own versus communications or business owners? How should we decide when to create a new community? What should our community lifecycle model include? How should inactive communities be reviewed or retired? What should be included in a community manager checklist? How should moderation and escalation work? What technical controls should IT consider before rollout? What metrics should IT and adoption leads monitor? Create a launch readiness checklist for Viva Engage governance. Create a sample operating model for Viva Engage governance. Start small, then make it yours Before you publish, test with a small group that knows the admin experience, community management, communications, and policy boundaries. Ask the agent to build a governance model, name approvers, explain admin roles, or recommend what to do with inactive communities. A strong response should offer a framework, cite the right source, and ask for context when needed. It should never turn a best practice into a made-up company rule. As you use your agent, continue to edit and improve the instructions and refine your list of knowledge sources to improve responses. The best governance agent is not the one with the longest instructions. It is the one people trust enough to use. Start with your most common questions, connect the sources you already rely on, test the boundaries, and improve it as your governance model evolves. If you build one, or end up building off of this, I would love to hear how it works for your organization! Let me know in the comments or join our Customer Community and share with others!
New features in Viva Engage help you rollout and adopt Copilot
Today, we announced several new capabilities across Microsoft Viva that will help organizations on their Copilot journey, including some built-in features within Viva Engage for Viva Suite and Viva Communications customers. Let’s take a deeper look at what’s new for Viva Engage.
