What’s New in Viva Engage – Microsoft Ignite 2025
Trust in leaders and their strategic vision is essential for driving an AI-powered workplace. When leaders truly listen and respond, employees feel heard, and they lean into shared objectives. This isn’t just an abstract principle—it's something we can see and measure. And IT is the backbone that makes those meaningful connections possible. Engage is designed to bring leaders right into the heart of day-to-day work, sparking open, two-way dialogue and connecting people and knowledge across teams and business silos. In fact, over a quarter of a billion unique connections are created each week on Viva Engage 1 . With these principles front and center, we’re rolling out updates inspired by your feedback—features built to deepen trust, turn signals to action, and unlock knowledge across your organization. From smarter, AI-powered Copilot experiences to advanced analytics and segmentation, these enhancements help you turn scattered conversations into clear insights for your organization. Here are the latest features and AI-powered capabilities coming to you in Engage. Agents in Communities Community agent in Engage introduces AI-powered assistance to help communities thrive. Acting like a helpful community member, the agent uses your community’s knowledge to answer questions, surface relevant resources, and keep conversations moving. It can proactively identify unanswered posts and draft responses based on trusted content, reducing the burden on community managers and ensuring employees get timely information. For organizations, this means stronger engagement and more efficient knowledge sharing. Community agent makes it easier to connect people with answers, scale expertise across teams, and maintain vibrant communities without adding extra workload. Agents in communities are available in public preview for users with Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Check out our launch blog to learn more about public preview and how to get started. Microsoft 365 Copilot in Engage Copilot in Engage is now smarter, faster, and more personalized—designed to help you work more efficiently. Acting as your assistant, it enables you to stay up-to-date, catch up quickly, and benefit more from your experiences throughout Viva Engage. Copilot in Engage delivers the information you need, right when you need it. Here’s what is available: Context-aware intelligence: Copilot adapts prompts based on where you are—community, campaign, storyline, or post—to maximize relevance. One-click catch-up and trending themes: Stay updated with summary cards and discover trending themes across your network, linking to dedicated feeds for more detail. Conversational, contextual search: Search within Engage to get results relevant to your current context, with options to broaden scope as needed. Smarter, connected writing assistance: Create richer posts efficiently with context from Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 signals. And if you’re looking to accelerate your Copilot journey at your organization, don’t miss the Copilot Adoption Community in Engage, a ready-made space with pre-built posts for peer-to-peer learning, sharing best practices, and getting the most out of Copilot in Engage. Copilot in Engage is generally available for users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Engage Public Content in Microsoft 365 Copilot All public Engage content is available in Copilot chat responses, making knowledge across your Engage network easily accessible and actionable for every employee. Copilot surfaces relevant conversations including discussion posts, Answers, discussions within events and leader posts so that if someone asks a question and relevant information is available in Engage, it will be highlighted in the Microsoft 365 Copilot response. Engage public content in Microsoft 365 Copilot is generally available to all users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. Community Themes and Sentiment in Community Analytics Engage community admins can now quickly understand trending themes their community members are discussing within communities they manage. Leveraging the technology powering network and audience analytics, we help you keep up with the most popular themes from conversations in your communities. You can also review summaries of posts and sentiment trends across any period using the newly released custom date range capabilities! Network admins and corporate communicators can also access these advanced analytics across public communities. Community themes and sentiment in community analytics is generally available for users with Viva Suite or Viva Communications and Communities license. HR Org Filters & Activation Metrics Organizational data filters enable users to filter analytics by employee attributes such as country, department, and job title. This capability is available to admins and corporate communicators through the ‘All filters’ panel in Network Analytics. These filters offer insight into how different employee segments interact with Viva Engage. To support deeper analysis on onboarding and adoption, the dashboard also now includes two new metrics: Enabled users and Activated users. When paired with existing engagement metrics, these values provide a view of the engagement funnel across segments. To further support data exploration, network-wide analytics can now be exported via the new Network Analytics CSV export, allowing networks to dive deeper into their data. HR org filters and activation metrics are generally available for users with Viva Suite or Viva Communications and Communities license. Storyline Targeting Storyline targeting brings more flexibility and precision to leadership communications in Viva Engage. With this capability, leaders and their delegates can define a custom audience at the time of posting, without relying on pre-configured Leader Audiences. Audiences can be built using organizational attributes like reporting structure, country, department, role or job title; existing groups such as M365 Groups, DLs, or SGs; and even individual users by name. This flexibility ensures timely, relevant communication that reaches the right people with the right message. Notifications and delivery channels, such as Teams and email, continue to follow existing Storyline Announcement behavior, providing a seamless experience for recipients. Storyline targeting is available in public preview and for users with Viva Suite or Viva Communications and Communities license. Learn more about how to sign up for public preview! Multi-language Posts Viva Engage now empowers global communication with manual multi-language posting. Authors can craft tailored messages in multiple languages—preserving tone, cultural nuance, and regional compliance—while readers seamlessly view content in their preferred language. Communicators can use different image and video assets for each translation. From leadership updates to global campaigns, this feature ensures inclusivity and clarity across borders, helping organizations connect confidently in today’s multilingual world. Multi-language posting is rolling out to general availability in the coming weeks for users with Viva Suite or Viva Communications and Communities license. AI Theme Moderation AI theme moderation is now generally available! Engage network admins and corporate communicators can use theme moderation to keep an eye on conversations. Themes don’t have to be exact matches like keywords, instead themes can be either broad topics or specific words or phrases. Once we detect a conversation matches the theme, you can track the conversation, alert on it, take manual action, or mute it from feeds. Theme moderation is always-on, working tirelessly on your behalf to scan and monitor conversations. It leverages the power of AI and LLMs to detect conversations across languages and context to extend the powers of moderators beyond what is possible through traditional keyword monitoring or human effort. AI theme moderation is generally available and available for users with Viva Suite or Viva Communications and Communities license. Post Tab in the Communications Dashboard The Posts tab in the communications dashboard offers a new comprehensive feed to review your published posts (retroactive to May 2025). You can access detailed analytics to evaluate post’s performance, manage drafts and scheduled posts, and conveniently create new posts directly from this page. The Posts tab includes filters that allow delegators and delegation team members to view posts they have created on behalf of others, as well as posts published on their behalf. View your published posts, and all posts published for you by your delegates (Created by filter). View your published posts, drafts and scheduled posts, and any or all posts that you've created for others (Owned by filter). The Post tab in the communications dashboard is generally available for users with Viva Suite or Viva Communications and Communities license. Live events produced with Teams Town Hall Community admins can now host live events using the Teams Town Hall (TTH)² for production. Built for high-quality, large-scale event delivery, TTH enables organizers to use RTMP to ingest a studio-quality production feed, or to use Teams Production Studio which makes it easy to switch between sources like presenters, screen shares, videos and slides with a familiar Teams environment. Teams Town Hall support live captions, translations, and reactions³, as well as an open feed of conversations and questions. Live events with Teams Town Hall are available today and can support up to 10,000 real-time attendees.⁴ TTH is built for the future of enterprise events at scale. Live events produced with Teams Town Hall is generally available. To learn more about how to use Events in Engage, join us at our upcoming webinar! Segmentation Segmentation in Viva Engage helps complex organizations deliver more relevant and personalized experiences at scale. By grouping employees based on attributes like region, department, or business unit, segmentation ensures that communities, storyline posts, and feeds are scoped to the right audience. This reduces noise and makes it easier for employees to find content that matters most to their work. Segmentation enables targeted communication from leaders and communicators, supports compliance by limiting sensitive information to the right groups, and creates a sense of belonging by connecting employees with content that reflects their role and context. Segmentation is generally available for users with Viva Suite or Viva Communications and Communities license. What to do next? Join us at Ignite! If you are attending Microsoft Ignite in person or online, come to our session How Microsoft manages employee & executive communications with AI to learn about communication tools and methods, with special focus on the latest AI-powered innovations and roadmap for Engage. Don’t miss our theater session Building Copilot momentum with community-led engagement in-person at Microsoft Ignite where we’ll be diving deeper into AI-powered capabilities including Copilot Adoption Community, Microsoft 365 Copilot in Engage, and agents in communities. We're always looking for new ways to make Viva Engage better, and your feedback is a huge part of that. If you’re looking for more ways to connect with us: FREE! The Communicator's Guide to AI: LinkedIn Learning: aka.ms/TheCommunicatorsGuidetoAI AI for Communicators First Fridays: aka.ms/FirstFridaysDec and for previous sessions aka.ms/FirstFridaysPlaylist Join us! What’s New with Events in Viva Engage webinar on December 4, 2025 at 8:00am PT: https://aka.ms/VivaEngage/Eventswebinar Come to our webinar, Copilot Adoption in Viva Engage with Micron on December 9, 2025 at 8:00am PT: https://aka.ms/VivaEngage/CopilotAdoptionMicronWebinar And coming early in 2026… Viva Engage Masterclass series for Season 2. Stay tuned here: https://aka.ms/vivaengage/masterclass See how you can do more with Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Engage in the short video below: Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and ideas—they help guide where we go next. 1 Based on Microsoft Internal Data collected between 11/05/2025 to 11/11/2025. Unique connections is defined as the unique pairs of employees who interact with each other on Engage (viewing each other's content, reacting, or replying) 2 Requires Microsoft Teams license. ³Available with Microsoft Teams Premium license and up to 20,000 users. ⁴If the event creator has Teams Premium, up to 100,000 attendees can join the event.
Introducing Viva Engage Masterclass: Your Guide to the Viva Engage Essentials
Are you ready to transform the way your team collaborates and communicates with Viva Engage? Monday Masterclass: Your Guide to Viva Engage Essentials, is a comprehensive series designed to introduce new customers to the powerful features of Viva Engage. This masterclass is your gateway to unlocking the full potential of your organization's communication and collaboration tools. Why Attend the Viva Engage Masterclass? The Masterclass is specifically tailored for customers who are eager to explore the capabilities of Viva Engage or to go beyond what they are experiencing today. During these 6 sessions, you'll gain valuable insights into how Viva Engage can enhance your organization's employee engagement. Here are some key benefits of attending: Comprehensive Overview: Get an in-depth look at the core capabilities for all roles who will be using Viva Engage, including admin and governance, moderations to how to create and manage communities, start and participate in conversations, and organize virtual events. Expert Guidance: Learn from Microsoft experts who will share best practices and tips for maximizing the use of Viva Engage in your organization. Interactive Q&A: Have your questions answered in real-time by our product group experts, ensuring you leave the session with a clear understanding of how to leverage Viva Engage in your organization. Hands-On Experience: Participate in live demonstrations and interactive activities that will help you get comfortable with the platform's functionalities. What to Expect These Masterclass sessions are designed to be an engaging and informative experience. With expert guidance, interactive sessions, and hands-on experiences, you'll leave the masterclass equipped with the knowledge and resources needed to launch Viva Engage. Each session has a blog post with dedicated resources and information including the recording. You can choose to view all 6 separate sessions or just watch the sessions that interest you! Mastering Admin and Governance in Viva Engage Enhance your administrative and governance skills with our comprehensive Monday Masterclass. This session will cover the essential aspects of administration and governance, providing you with the knowledge and tools to effectively manage and oversee your organization's Viva Engage network. Learn best practices, strategies, and practical tips to ensure smooth and efficient governance. Whether you're a new admin or looking to refine your skills, this masterclass will equip you with the expertise you need to excel. Monday Masterclass: Week 1 | Viva Engage Admin and Governance Watch session: Mastering admin and governance in Viva Engage (Customer Hub) – Microsoft Adoption Community Management Overview in Viva Engage Join us for an in-depth workshop on community management within Viva Engage. This session is designed to equip you with comprehensive strategies and tools to build, manage, and sustain vibrant communities that foster collaboration, enhance employee engagement, and support diversity and inclusion. Monday Masterclass: Week 2 | Community Management Watch session: Community management overview in Viva Engage (Customer Hub) – Microsoft Adoption Corporate Communications, Campaigns, and Leadership Engagement Elevate your communication strategies with our comprehensive Monday Masterclass. This session will delve into the essentials of effective corporate communications, impactful campaigns, and leadership engagement with Microsoft. Gain insights into best practices and innovative approaches to enhance your communication efforts. Whether you're looking to refine your skills or explore new strategies and new technology, this masterclass will provide you with the tools and knowledge to succeed. Monday Masterclass: Week 3 | Corporate Communications Watch session: Corporate communications, campaigns, and leadership engagement (Customer Hub) – Microsoft Adoption Effective Training and Adoption Strategies to launch Viva Engage Kickstart your Viva Engage journey with our focused session on training and adoption strategies. Learn how to effectively implement and promote Viva Engage within your organization, ensuring a smooth transition and high user engagement. This masterclass will provide you with practical tips and proven methods to drive successful adoption. Monday Masterclass: Week 4 Training and Adoption | Microsoft Community Hub Watch session: Effective training and adoption strategies to launch Viva Engage (Customer Hub) – Microsoft Adoption Create Captivating Events with Viva Engage Discover the secrets to hosting engaging events with our Monday Masterclass. This session will guide you through the essentials of planning, executing, and enhancing events to captivate your audience. Learn best practices, innovative techniques, and practical tips to make your events stand out. Whether you're new to event planning or looking to re-ignite your community with events, this masterclass will provide you with the tools and knowledge to create impactful and engaging events. Monday Masterclass Week 5: Mastering Live Events and AMAs in Viva Engage Watch session: Create captivating events with Viva Engage (Customer Hub) – Microsoft Adoption Data and Analytics Deep Dive Unlock the power of data and analytics in Viva Engage! This session will provide you with an in-depth overview of how to leverage data to drive engagement and make informed decisions. Whether you're new to data & analytics or looking to enhance your skills, this masterclass will equip you with practical examples and working sessions to help you master the essentials. Monday Masterclass: Week 6 Analytics in Viva Engage Watch session: Data and analytics deep dive (Customer Hub) – Microsoft Adoption Recordings and resources! Watch the Masterclass: Your Guide to Viva Engage Essentials and take the first step towards a more connected and engaged workforce. With expert guidance, interactive sessions, and hands-on experience, you'll leave the masterclass equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to transform your organization's communication and collaboration landscape. Thank you for your participation at the masterclass! Stay tuned for what's next!What’s new and next in Engage: June 2026
Stay up to date with the latest innovations coming to Viva Engage in June 2026. This update highlights new capabilities designed to enhance community engagement, streamline leadership communication, and empower employees to connect, share, and collaborate more effectively across your organization.Microsoft 365 Copilot is coming to Viva Engage
We’re excited to announce that Microsoft 365 Copilot is coming to Viva Engage. Copilot in Engage is now smarter, faster, and personalized-designed to boost your productivity. Operating as an assistant, it helps you stay informed, catch up quickly, and get more out of your interactions across Viva Engage. Catch up on community conversations, get insights from colleagues, find posts from leaders, see what’s trending, and recall key updates-Copilot in Engage brings you the information you need, right when you need it. Stay in flow with context-aware productivity Copilot in Engage is context-aware and recognizes when you're in a community, storyline, campaign, or a single conversation. It tailors responses to your current workspace, helping you catch up faster and find what you need, all while staying focused on your current context. Copilot in Engage also includes contextual, pre-populated prompts designed to help you maximize value. Contextual prompts adapt dynamically as you navigate from one surface to another on Viva Engage, providing AI-powered assistance throughout your experience. Stay in the loop with smart catch-up cards Get the latest updates across your network and inside specific communities on Engage by asking Copilot to catch you up – all in a single click. You’ll get clean, organized summaries that help you focus on what truly matters. Curious about what people are buzzing about across your organization? Prompt Copilot to show you what’s trending across Engage. You’ll see popular content grouped by themes. Clicking on a theme takes you to a new Themes Feed, where you can explore all the conversations that contribute to that trend. It’s never been easier to see what captures your organization’s attention. Find what you need when you need it with effortless search Whether you’re hunting for a specific post in a community or catching up on everything shared in communities you follow, Copilot now has enhanced contextual search to track down what you’re looking for in Viva Engage. Here are examples of how Copilot in Engage search can assist you: Find the post my teammate shared in the PM Learnings Community What are the latest updates across all the communities I follow Show me posts from the last week related to <insert subject> Catch me up on where I’ve been mentioned Whether you’re asking something broad or diving into specifics, Copilot in Engage is here to help you stay connected, informed, and in control Write better with Copilot’s improved writing assistance Sharing updates just got smarter. Want to post a quick recap of what your team’s been up to this past month? Copilot in Engage now has enhanced writing assistance that can pull in relevant context from Teams and Outlook. Effortlessly connect the dots and craft more complete, informed updates, without starting from scratch. The future of workplace productivity in your communities and conversations is here. With new Copilot capabilities in Engage, you’re a step ahead—more connected, more informed, and more empowered. Now rolling out to general availability, customers can unlock the full potential of the Copilot experiences in Viva Engage with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. We’d love your feedback If something works well or could be improved, just click the thumbs up or thumbs down icon on any Copilot response. This feedback goes directly to the Copilot team and is regularly reviewed to help us refine the experience. You can also share your thoughts through the Message Center posts or in the comments below — we’d love to hear from you. Learn more: Viva Engage set up requirements Get Started with Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Engage Set up Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Engage (IT/admins)
Calling Legacy Viva Engage (Yammer) APIs via an Entra application
The Yammer application platform that enabled access to legacy Viva Engage (Yammer) REST APIs via OAuth2 tokens will be officially retired on June 30, 2025. To ensure uninterrupted access, all customers must transition to using Microsoft Entra applications as soon as possible. The good news? The legacy Yammer APIs are fully supported through modern, secure Entra apps — and getting started is easier than you might think. This blog provides a step-by-step walkthrough for calling Yammer APIs using an Entra application with PowerShell 7, leveraging MSAL for interactive authentication. We will call /users/current.json - Yammer | Microsoft Learn API to fetch the details of the user, who completes the authentication flow. Note: The examples in this post assume you have PowerShell 7 and the MSAL module pre-installed. If you're looking for a Postman-based guide to access Yammer APIs, you can find detailed instructions here. Let’s dive into how you can make this transition smoothly and start using Entra-authenticated API calls today. Step 1: Register an Entra App For detailed information on Entra application registration flow, refer to this guide. Go to Azure Portal: https://portal.azure.com Navigate to: Azure Active Directory → App registrations → New registration Fill in the form: Name: e.g., Yammer API Test Supported account types: Choose based on your org (e.g., "Accounts in this organizational directory only") Select platform: Choose “Public client/native (mobile & desktop)” Redirect URI: Set the right redirect url, e.g., http://localhost Click Register Step 2: Configure the App Authentication Go to the Authentication tab Under Advanced settings, set: Allow public client flows → Yes Click Save API Permissions Go to API permissions Click Add a permission Select Yammer Select Delegated → access_as_user Click Add permissions to save Step 3: Prepare the PowerShell Script Save the following as YammerAPI.ps1: # Clear MSAL token cache Clear-MsalTokenCache # Define app credentials $clientId = "YOUR_CLIENT_ID" $tenantId = "YOUR_TENANT_ID" $redirectUri = "http://localhost" $scopes = @(" https://www.yammer.com/.default") # Trigger interactive login $authResult = Get-MsalToken -ClientId $clientId -TenantId $tenantId -RedirectUri $redirectUri -Scopes $scopes -Interactive $token = $authResult.AccessToken # Call Yammer API $response = Invoke-RestMethod -Method Get -Uri "https://www.yammer.com/api/v1/users/current.json" -Headers @{Authorization = "Bearer $token"} $response Now, replace YOUR_CLIENT_ID and YOUR_TENANT_ID with values from your app registration. Step 4: Run the Script In PowerShell 7: > pwsh "C:\Path\To\YammerAPI.ps1" You will be prompted to sign in interactively. Once authenticated, the script will call the Yammer API and return your user info. We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback and thoughts about using the legacy Viva Engage (Yammer) APIs via modern Entra-based authentication and how you’ll use it to better manage users, conversations, and communities within Viva Engage. Stay tuned! Aditi is a product manager at MicrosoftWhat’s new in Viva Engage – Ignite Edition
Today at Microsoft Ignite, we announced new experiences in Viva Engage designed to enable leaders and employees to share, connect, and communicate – with new integrations across Viva and Microsoft 365 and new ways to harness the power of Copilot and AI for knowledge discovery, moderation, and analytics. Here’s a full briefing on the latest news: Storyline in Microsoft Teams Storylines in Viva Engage enable you to create, share and discover content with others in your organization, fostering collaboration and connection through personalized content and experiences. The Storyline integration into Microsoft Teams empowers you to follow updates and notifications from leadership, discover content, and contribute your ideas and perspectives while staying in your flow of work in Teams. Landing early in 2025, this update provides a new way for leaders to share communications with the entire company using Microsoft Teams. Full community integration and much more is coming next year. Storyline announcements – sharing at scale Leaders and their communications teams can share announcements and posts from leaders’ storylines that reach their target audiences across Teams and Outlook. When a leader sends an announcements, their determined audience will see it as a notification, with the ability to reach and engage virtually any size audience. Please note: Configuring leaders and audiences required Viva Suite or Viva Communications & Communities. Expanded Copilot Experience Earlier this year, we added Copilot to Viva Engage to help users stay on top of trending content, spark engagement, get writing assistance, and help drive adoption through community learning. Now, we are expanding the powers of Copilot within Engage to help find knowledge, summarize community content, and catch up on important conversations. Copilot in Viva Engage will soon be able to summarize community engagement. Over time, we will bring more Copilot skills into Engage including predictive analytics, image creation, and best practices for leadership communications. Copilot in Viva Engage experiences are available to Viva suite and Viva Communications and Communities customers. AI powered moderation tools for digital safety Use Engage AI-powered content and keyword alerts to gain visibility into conversations across your network. This new capability gives you visibility into themes of your choosing and proactively mute conversations about controversial topics. As part of our digital safety efforts, we are also modernizing keyword detection giving moderators the ability to mute, flag, or track any keyword with more innovation in the new year including real-time analysis of new posts. Experts and verified answers in Communities Discovering and validating knowledge is essential to communities and a driving force behind participation. To help highlight authoritative information, community admins can now designate experts in their communities to scale the load of managing knowledge. Experts can serve as a source of trustworthy knowledge and help members quickly find the solutions they are looking for. Experts will be able to: Mark best answer on questions Mark an answer as Verified Get an ‘expert’ tag next to their name to identify them Be recognized in the expert section Engage Q&A coming to Microsoft 365 Copilot Incorporating Engage Q&A ensures that trusted, expert knowledge is surfaced in Copilot. This will be a game changer in the vast source of knowledge increasing the accuracy and consistency of Copilot’s responses. Soon, you’ll see verified answers in the reference hover card in Copilot. Through verified answers, you can be assured the information is trustworthy. And of course, you’ll be able to see the source and click into it for context. Q&A from public Engage communities is also now available in Microsoft 365 workplace search in Bing at work, Office.com, and SharePoint.com. &A content in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat in Teams Additionally, the ‘Experts’ tag will appear in the hover card to recognition colleagues for their contributions and expertise. In 2025, we’ll also bring content from Engage communities directly into M365 Copilot chat. Engage integrations into Viva Connections We are continuing to invest in deeper integration with Viva Connections including: Engage feed card for dashboard – The card will surface recent, relevant community discussions with the ability for users to quickly catch up, take actions or link directly to the community for deeper engagement. Engage announcements will start to show up in the Connections announcements banner. Spotlight – Bringing Engage campaigns and event content into the Spotlight carousel Check out the Viva Connections blog for more details. These are a few of the many new capabilities announced at Ignite and coming your way. Catch everything that is new in the Viva Communications and Communities on-demand session and keep an eye on the Viva Engage Roadmap for detailed timing on releases.Effective, engaging events in communities and storylines
Whether you’re running a company-wide broadcast, a training session, a Reddit-style “ask me anything” (AMA) or an in-person gathering, Viva Engage and Microsoft Teams help you host and manage more effective and engaging events. Events have always been central to employee communications. Viva Engage and events play a critical role in building trust, encouraging authenticity, and listening at scale. From highly produced hybrid all-hands to asynchronous AMAs, the new Viva Engage features are helping our leaders connect with employees, address what matters most, and build trust—all in one platform. - John Cirone, Senior Director of Global Employee and Executive Communications We are upgrading existing community live events and storyline AMA features with a simple model: three event types—broadcast, meeting, async—from any community or storyline, super-powered with a long list of event features you have asked for. The result: improved experiences for organizers, presenters and attendees both before, during and after the event. This blog post will detail what this means for you! These new events features start rolling out April 27 th . And guess what? All of these new features will be available to all Microsoft 365 commercial customers with access to Engage and Teams—no “premium” license will be required for events up to 10,000 attendees. New features: the highlights The new capabilities of Engage events—particularly the moderated feed with support for anonymous questions and upvotes—has transformed the way we empower our leaders to listen and respond to questions from employees. - Alexander Bradley, Senior Director of Executive Communications With that in mind, let’s start by exploring the new features for every event in every community and storyline: Events listing: Each community and storyline has a calendar of upcoming and past events—a destination for people to register for future events and catch up with events they missed. Event page: The home for your event is a branded landing page with a custom cover photo (coming soon), the event details and description. This is the “micro site” for your event to which you drive attendees. They can learn about the event, engage with it, join the live session, and catch up with the event if they missed it. Event feed: A new event feed enables you to share updates, solicit questions, ideas and feedback, and support engagement between attendees and presenters. The new event feed introduces support for optional anonymous posting and moderation which allows organizers to approve posts before they are made visible to attendees. The feed allows you to tune the event experience for the engagement you want to encourage and support; you can enable or disable questions, comments, reactions, and upvoting; and you can change the settings at any time. The event feed is available before, during and after the event, showing up on the event landing page in Engage and in the “Q&A” panel of Teams. Event recording: After the event, the recording is available on the event page, so attendees can review both the recording and the feed. You can now update the recording link, allowing you to make edits to the video. Calendaring options: Events in Engage support two models to support your efforts to drive demand and attendance. First, you can invite attendees directly from Outlook, putting an invitation directly in their calendar. This model supports scenarios where their attendance is expected. Or, you can drive attendees to the event page where they can add to calendar, supporting an “opt-in” model that gives attendees control of what is on their calendar. Or you can mix and match, inviting those attendees who really need to have it on their calendar and letting others opt in. Event analytics: You’ll have access to analytics throughout the lifecycle of your event. You’ll be able to see how many people attended, how they engaged in the event feed, and how people consumed the recording after the event. For broadcasts, you can also access Teams insights. Mobile app choice: Attendees can join events from either the Teams or Engage mobile apps, across both iOS and Android. Integration with enterprise search and Copilot: Content from public events serves as grounding for Microsoft 365 Copilot and enterprise search, amplifying the reach and impact of the knowledge and information you share in your event. Event types Now, let’s explore the three event types and what is different. BROADCAST is best for company-wide or large-scale events, launches, keynotes and organizational “town hall” or “all hands” events. Key characteristics: Deliver a high‑quality live stream that scales to large audiences Organizers control what appears on screen Attendees watch the event and participate using Q&A and reactions This experience is an upgrade to the legacy “live event” broadcast, with an advanced feed and a rich suite of production features. MEETING is best for collaborative sessions, presentations, training workshops, expert panels, and all of the regular “rhythm of business” events your team or department conducts. Key characteristics: Share camera, microphone, and screen in real time Organizers can control who can present and share Up to 1,000 people can participate in the live event A collaborative event can feel exactly like a Teams meeting, where anyone can share. Or it can be like a presentation or webinar, where only presenters can share. Or anything in between. ASYNC is best for soliciting questions, collecting feedback, and crowdsourcing ideas from employees. Conduct an offline, asynchronous event with no live presentation or video stream Host an "ask-me-anything" (AMA) during which leaders or experts answer questions Enhance an in-person event by engaging your audience before and after This experience features an event page and event feed, but no real-time video experience powered by Teams. You can gather questions, ideas and feedback before an in-person event, or host a text-only (asynchronous) event like a Reddit-style AMA that can connect people with experts even over longer periods of time. Why host events in a community instead of creating them from your calendar? Until now, you’ve had one way to create events: From your Teams or Outlook calendar, you can create a Teams meeting, a Teams webinar, or a Teams Town Hall. Why would you want to change where you create and host events? An event isn’t just a calendar entry; its impact continues outside of the event confines. New event features help employees who missed the live event catch up quickly, help moderators engage attendees, and help leaders close the loop by responding to remaining questions. The result is a richer, more durable record of the event, so your organization benefits from the information and knowledge long after the event ends. Here’s the short list of what you can do better when you create your event from a community: Provide a calendar of upcoming and past events. Communicate effectively to drive awareness and attendance. Engage your audience before, during and after the event. Leverage event analytics to measure and improve effectiveness. Amplify information and knowledge shared at the event, after the event. Integration with community objectives and experiences. If you have experience with Microsoft 365 and events, think of it this way: By creating an event in a community, you’re taking a Teams event and wrapping it with the superpowers of Engage to reach and engage your audience at scale, before, during and after your event. And remember communities are not just for Engage anymore! Communities (powered by Engage) will be available in Teams Chat, alongside your chats, channels, and meetings; so, your events and their content will be seamlessly integrated into the flow of work in Teams. Preview customers have used these new event capabilities at scale, for company-wide “all hands” events, departmental rhythm-of-business meetings, and an extraordinary number of internal AI learning events. We look forward to celebrating your successful events as you apply these features to share news and information, train people, and engage employees. Resources Organize an Engage event - Microsoft Support Attend an Engage event - Microsoft Support Monday Masterclass Season 2 – Week 4 Designing Events Employees Remember | Microsoft Community Hub
New Viva Engage Capabilities Now Available to All Engage Customers
Many of you told us that creating, organizing, and sharing content in Engage could be easier and we’ve taken that to heart. We’re excited to announce that several highly requested features: draft and schedule posts, storyline cover photos and AMAs, featured posts and ‘post on behalf of’ are now available for all Engage customers. These updates are designed to give employees more flexibility and help leaders and communicators share their messages more effectively. Draft and Schedule Posts We heard you, timing matters. Employees can now draft and schedule posts in their communities or storyline. Whether you want to plan for a big announcement or simply polish your message before sharing, this feature makes it simple to organize your posts and publish them when the moment is right. Learn more about drafting and scheduling posts here. New Storyline capabilities Storyline Cover Photos Storyline in Viva Engage is a personal feed where employees and leaders share updates, ideas, and experiences to connect and engage across the organization. Now, give your Storyline a more personal, branded look. With cover photos, everyone can customize the visual identity of their Storyline, helping their posts stand out and feel more connected to their organization’s culture. Storyline Delegate Posting Communication teams can now help leaders shine. With delegate posting or post on behalf of (POBO), designated communicators can draft and publish posts for leaders directly in their Storyline — keeping voices consistent and messages impactful. Read more about how to set up delegate posting here. Storyline can be enabled for certain groups within your organization, empower leaders or subject matter experts to test these new experiences. Learn more about how to get the most out of Storyline in our Storyline playbook. Featured Posts Sometimes a message needs extra visibility. With featured posts, admins and corporate communicators can spotlight important content, so it reaches more people: Featured posts get priority placement in the Home Feed and in Discovery emails. They may also appear in digest emails and other recommendation slots powered by machine learning. In private communities, featured posts respect boundaries and are only shown to members of that community. Learn more about featuring a post here. AMAs Employees want more direct access to leaders. With Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions, leaders can host open Q&As on their storyline, where employees can submit questions and comment anonymously, and get real-time responses, all in one familiar place. Organizers can also moderate questions and export them for analysis, making it easier than ever to understand what’s top of mind for employees. It’s a simple, authentic way to build trust and spark dialogue. Learn more about hosting successful AMAs in our AMA playbook. For more information on setting up AMAs read our support docs. We’re thrilled to bring these new features to life and can’t wait to see how they empower you to connect, share, and lead more effectively across Viva Engage. Stay tuned—there’s even more innovation on the horizon.
Viva Engage Public Content is Now Available in Microsoft 365 Copilot
We understand the value of information in your Viva Engage network, whether it’s a post from a leader, an answer to a question or in a community. So, we’ve made public information from across Viva Engage available in Microsoft 365 Copilot — starting with Q&A and now including discussion posts. This includes public discussion posts from public communities, events, Answers and Storylines. We are delighted to bring this new content source to Copilot, making the everyday conversations, Answers, events and leadership posts more discoverable so that, if a user asks a question and relevant information is available in Engage, it will be highlighted in the Microsoft 365 Copilot response. This ensures users receive high-quality answers that fully address their queries. Engage content is also available in agents like Researcher (built into the default Copilot experience) where users can scope the source to just Viva Engage as necessary. Eager to get started? Try out some of these prompts in Copilot: Tip: when using these prompts specifying “Viva Engage or Engage” in the prompt will return better results. “What did I miss in Engage in the past 2 weeks?” “What has <your favorite coworker> posted recently in Engage?” “What are my coworkers saying about <topic>? In Engage” “Show me the post regarding <topic> that <your favorite coworker> posted in Engage” “From the discussions in Engage, what is the AI strategy in my company and how are people reacting to it?” We can’t wait for you to test out this new Copilot capability. It’s all about helping you stay informed, inspired, and connected with your Engage content. We encourage you to send us feedback with a thumbs up/down and “#GraphConnector” in the text box. For additional information check out our support documentation.Introducing Verified Answers in Viva Engage
We are pleased to announce the introduction of "Verified Answers" in Viva Engage. Viva Engage leads the way among community platforms by fostering trust with advanced features such as "Verified Answers," which enhance credibility and facilitate knowledge sharing. This new functionality enables community experts and administrators to designate certain responses as "Verified," offering an easy and reliable way for employees to find trustworthy information. Key Benefits of Verified Answers: Enhanced Credibility: With verified answers, users can confidently rely on the accuracy of responses, knowing that they have been reviewed and endorsed by designated experts. Streamlined Knowledge Sharing: Verified answers are highlighted and pinned at the top of discussion threads, making it easier for everyone in the community to quickly access key information. Robust Community Engagement: This feature not only recognizes the expertise within your community but also fosters a culture of trust and thorough knowledge exchange. Who can mark an answer as verified? Only assigned community experts and community administrators have the ability to mark an answer as verified. This ensures that the verification comes from users with recognized expertise and authority within the community. Learn more about community experts and how to assign them here. How does the verified answer appear? Once an answer is verified, it is automatically pinned to the top of the answer list, making it the most visible response in the discussion. This helps users quickly identify the most reliable information. What happens to previous markings like 'best answer'? If an answer is marked as verified, any previous 'best answer' marking is overridden. To keep the interface clean and prevent confusion, only one label will be shown at a time—either 'verified' or 'best answer', but not both. Is this feature available to all users? Yes, the Verified Answers feature is available in your existing Microsoft 365 license, which means it is available to all users of Viva Engage. We are continuing to invest in additional capabilities building on trust, reliability and knowledge sharing within your Viva Engage communities. Make sure to check out our Masterclass series and stay tuned for more!
