Viva Engage Explained: Search
Every person's search results are different. Just like the home feed, Engage search is personalized. When you search, we don't just look at the words you typed - we consider who you work with, which communities you're active in, and what content is most likely to be useful to you specifically. So how does search work? What happens when you type a query and press Enter? And how can you search more effectively? Let's take a closer look. The search experience Search in Viva Engage has two stages: suggestions as you type and full search results. Each is designed to help you find what you need as quickly as possible. Stage 1: Instant suggestions Even before you start typing anything, when you click on the search bar, you are presented with suggestions based on your previous searches. As soon as you start typing in the search box, Engage shows you instant suggestions before you even press Enter. These suggestions are organized by type: Query suggestions - popular and related search terms that help you refine your query Ask Copilot - an option to have Copilot answer your question directly using knowledge from Engage Communities - matching communities you can navigate to directly People - matching users so you can jump straight to their profile Campaigns - campaigns that match your search terms As you type "copilot," Engage instantly shows related query suggestions, matching communities like "Microsoft Global Hackathon 2025," and relevant people - all before you press Enter. These suggestions are designed to save you time. If you see the community, person, or campaign you're looking for, you can click it directly - no need to go to the full search results page. When to use Ask Copilot You'll notice that the autosuggestions include an "Ask Copilot" option at the top. This is especially powerful when your search goes beyond simple keywords and becomes a full question or request. Here's a good rule of thumb: if you're typing more than a couple of keywords, consider using Ask Copilot. When your query looks more like a sentence or question than a keyword search, Copilot is often the faster path to an answer. What you're typing Best approach "hackathon" đ Regular search - a simple keyword, great for browsing posts "hackathon winners 2025" đ Regular search - specific keywords will surface the right threads "who won the hackathon last year" đ€ Ask Copilot - this is a question; Copilot can synthesize the answer from multiple posts "how do I set up a community in Engage" đ€ Ask Copilot - a how-to question; Copilot can assemble step-by-step guidance "what was discussed in the last leadership town hall" đ€ Ask Copilot - a summarization request; Copilot can pull together key points from recap threads "what are the latest AI tools people are using" đ€ Ask Copilot - an exploratory question; Copilot can aggregate insights from across the network How it works: When you click "Ask Copilot," your query is sent to Microsoft 365 Copilot, which searches across conversations in your Engage network and generates a natural-language answer with citations. You'll see a summarized response with links to the source threads - so you can always verify and dig deeper. License requirement: Ask Copilot is available only to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license. If you don't have a Copilot license, the "Ask Copilot" option will not appear in the search suggestions. All other search features - keyword matching, meaning matching, personalized ranking, and filtering - are available to all Viva Engage users. Think of it this way: regular search helps you browse and discover. It's ideal when you want to see a list of posts and scan through them yourself. Ask Copilot helps you get answers. It's ideal when you have a specific question and want a synthesized response instead of scrolling through dozens of results. Both options are available in the same search box - start typing and choose the path that matches your intent. Stage 2: Full search results When you press Enter (or click the search icon), you land on the full search results page. Results are organized into tabs so you can focus on exactly what you're looking for: Tab What it shows Conversations Thread results with full post previews, author info, community name, and highlighted matching terms Answers Questions and answers that match your query Communities Communities with matching names or descriptions People Users matching by name, job title, or email Campaigns Active and past campaigns matching your query Files Documents and files shared in Engage posts Topics Topics used across the network The full search results page for " copilot" - notice how the matching keywords are highlighted in the post preview, and results show the community name, author, date, and reply count. You can further narrow your results using the filter bar at the top of the results page. Filters include Date, Posted by (a specific person), Posted in (a specific community), and an All filters option for advanced filtering. How search finds your results When you search in Viva Engage, a lot happens behind the scenes - all in less than a second. Here's a simplified view of what happens: Keyword matching + meaning matching Viva Engage uses hybrid search - two fundamentally different approaches that run at the same time and complement each other: Keyword matching finds posts that contain the exact words you typed. This uses a proven information retrieval technique that considers not just whether your keywords appear, but how often they appear and how distinctive they are. A rare, specific word like "hackathon" carries more weight than a common word like "team." This is great for specific terms like project names, acronyms, or someone's name. If you search for "FY26 Q3 OKRs," keyword matching finds posts that use those exact terms. Keyword matching also draws from two pools of content: exploration results (discovery-focused, across all content you can access) and affinity results (personalized, weighted toward people and communities you interact with most). These two pools are merged to give you both breadth and personalization right from the start. Meaning matching uses AI to understand the intent behind your query. Your query text is converted into a mathematical representation of its meaning (called an "embedding"), and then compared against embeddings for all threads in the network. Posts with similar meaning are surfaced - even if they use completely different words. For example, if you search for "team morale ideas," meaning matching can surface a post titled "Fun Activities to Boost Team Engagement" - there's no word overlap, but the meaning is the same. Only results that meet a minimum similarity threshold are included, ensuring quality. Why both? Keyword matching is precise and predictable. Meaning matching helps you discover content you might have missed. Together, they cast a wide net - typically evaluating hundreds of candidate posts - before narrowing down to the most relevant results for you. Privacy and permissions Engage applies strict permission checks. You will only ever see content you have access to. Posts from private communities you haven't joined, or threads that have been deleted, are never shown. Note that content from communities you've muted will still appear in search results - muting affects your feed, not search. Personalized ranking After finding all the potentially relevant posts, Engage uses a machine learning model to re-rank results specifically for you. The model evaluates each candidate post across over 100 different signals, organized into several categories: Text relevance - how well the post content matches your query, measured through multiple dimensions including term frequency, term importance, match density, and which part of the post the match appears in (title, body, or replies) People affinity - how much you interact with the person who wrote the post, across Engage, Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft 365 tools. The system computes a personalized affinity score between you and every author in the result set Community affinity - how active you are in the community where the post was shared, based on your visits, replies, and engagement history with that community Semantic similarity - three separate AI-computed similarity scores: how close your query meaning is to the post content, to the post author, and to the community where it was posted Recency and time signals - when the post was created, how much time has elapsed, and time-decay factors that naturally boost newer content Engagement signals - view counts, reply counts, reactions, and the user's own search and click history help predict what they'll find valuable Highlight quality - where in the post the matches appear, how concentrated they are, and how prominent the matching sections are This is why two people searching for the same thing may see different results. If you work closely with someone in the engineering team and they posted about "hackathon," their post will naturally rank higher for you than for someone who has never interacted with them. Speed and performance All of this - hybrid candidate generation, feature computation across 100+ signals, machine learning ranking, and permission filtering - happens in under a second. Several techniques make this possible: Parallelism - keyword and meaning matching run simultaneously, not one after the other, so the total time is the duration of the slower search, not the sum of both Smart caching - when you view the first page of results, Engage pre-fetches and caches the next page in the background. This means pagination feels instant - clicking to page 2 or 3 serves cached results with no delay Batch processing - signals like engagement history and community metadata are fetched and computed in optimized batches rather than one at a time The result is a search experience that feels instant while doing sophisticated work behind the scenes. Searching for people Viva Engage search isn't just for conversations - it's also a powerful way to find people across your organization. When you search for a person, Engage matches against: Display name - first name, last name, or both (e.g., "Rajesh Jha") Job title - search by role (e.g., "engineering manager" or "principal PM") Email or alias - search by email address or alias prefix People results appear in both the instant suggestions dropdown and the People tab on the search results page. Each result shows the person's name, profile picture, job title, and email - so you can quickly identify the right person even when there are multiple matches. Tip: If you know someone's email alias, searching for it (e.g., "chrzeng") is often the fastest way to find them. Searching by job title (e.g., "product manager Engage") helps you discover people you may not know by name. Searching for communities Looking for a community to join? Search matches against community names and descriptions. This means you can search by topic (e.g., "accessibility," "onboarding," "women leadership") and find relevant communities even if the exact word isn't in the community name. Community results also appear in the instant suggestions as you type, making it easy to navigate directly to a community without visiting the full results page. A few examples of how community search works: You search for... You'll find communities like... "accessibility" Engage Accessibility, Accessibility Connected Community, Accessibility Leadership Community "women leadership" SME&C Women in Leadership, Women's Leadership Community (WLC), Technical Women at Microsoft "Azure DevOps" Azure DevOps / 1ES, and related Azure engineering communities "onboarding" Onboarding, Alchemy Onboarding, New Employee Onboarding Keyword highlighting When you land on the search results page, you'll notice that your search terms are highlighted in the post previews. This helps you quickly scan results and understand why each post was returned. Highlighting appears in: The thread title (if the post has one) The body text preview - Engage shows the most relevant snippet of the post with your keywords highlighted Replies - if a reply matches your query, it's shown with highlights below the original post For example, searching for "AI tools and copilot" highlights each matching word in the results, making it easy to see how the post relates to your query at a glance. A note on highlighting: Weâre aware that keyword highlighting may not appear consistently across all result types. For instance, topic names and community names are indexed and searchable but are not currently highlighted in the search results. Weâre actively working to improve highlighting consistency across the search experience. Search on mobile - the same engine, designed for your pocket Search in Viva Engage works the same way whether you're at your desk or on the go. The mobile apps (iOS and Android) use the same search engine, ranking, and personalization as the web experience - so the results you see on your phone are the same quality you'd get on the web. On mobile, the search results page is optimized for touch and smaller screens: result cards are streamlined, tabs let you tap between Conversations, People, Communities, and more, and tapping any result takes you straight into the full thread. Use search on mobile to stay connected with your organization's conversations on the go - catch up on town hall recaps, hackathon updates, or announcements from anywhere. Feature Web Mobile Search engine & ranking â Full hybrid search with personalization â Same engine and ranking Search tabs â Conversations, Answers, Communities, People, Files, Topics â Same tabs Autosuggest â Communities, People, Campaigns, Ask Copilot as you type â Not available Filters â Date, Posted by, Posted in â Not available Keyword highlighting â Yellow highlights on matching keywords â Same highlighting Result cards Rich cards with hero images, inline replies Streamlined cards optimized for smaller screens Search operators â AND, OR, NOT, "exact phrase", wildcards â Same operators What impacts your search results? Your search experience improves over time as Engage learns from your activity. These actions directly influence the quality and personalization of your results: Join communities. Joining relevant communities and leaving ones you're not interested in helps search understand what topics matter to you. Results from communities you've joined receive increased weight. Interact with posts. Liking, replying to, and viewing posts tells search which content and authors are relevant to you. The more you engage, the better your people and community affinity scores become. Follow people. Following leaders and colleagues is one of the strongest signals for search personalization. Posts from people you follow get a natural ranking boost. Join relevant communities. Being a member of communities helps search understand your interests and can surface more relevant content from those communities. Good to know: Engage uses the same affinity signals as the home feed. If you've been improving your feed experience by following people and joining communities, your search results are benefiting too. Tips for more effective searching Engage search learns from the signals you provide. Here are some ways to get better results: Be specific Instead of âstrategy,â try âFY26 company strategy.â Adding context like dates, team names, or product names helps search find exactly what you need. Use the tabs If youâre looking for a person, click the People tab. If youâre looking for a community, click Communities to focus results on the right content type. Filter by date Use the Date filter to narrow results to a specific time period. Especially useful if you roughly remember when something was posted. Filter by author Use the Posted by filter if you remember who posted it. Helps narrow results to a specific personâs posts. Filter by community Use Posted in to limit results to a specific community. Helpful when you know where the conversation happened. Ask Copilot When you see Ask Copilot in the suggestions dropdown, click it. Youâll get an AI-generated answer drawn from Engage conversations. Use search operators Use AND to require all terms e.g., safety AND store Use OR to broaden results e.g., hackathon OR innovation Use NOT to exclude terms e.g., hackathon NOT 2026 Use quotes for exact phrases. Operators can be combined e.g., (hackathon OR innovation) AND 2025 Search by hashtag If you know the topic or campaign tag (e.g., #CopilotStories), search for it directly. The Topics tab shows all matching hashtags and their associated threads. We're always improving The Viva Engage search team is continuously improving the search experience. As you use search, you're helping it get smarter. Your interactions - the results you click, the posts you engage with, and the communities you join - all contribute to a better experience for everyone. Have feedback on search? Send an email to rarajase@microsoft.com - we're listening.Sensitivity Labels Are Coming to Viva Engage Communities Here's What You Need to Know
If you've seen MC1250283 in your Message Center and have questions, you're not alone. In the past few weeks we've heard from customers across industries â financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, government â all asking variations of the same questions. This post is our attempt to answer them all in one place. You can find out more via this article Sensitivity labels in Viva Engage. | Microsoft Learn What's changing Starting March 31, 2026 sensitivity labels will be available in Viva Engage community creation. When someone creates a new community, they'll see a sensitivity label picker, the same kind of label selector that already exists in Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. This is Engage joining the rest of Microsoft 365. Sensitivity labels for groups and sites have been supported in Teams, SharePoint, and M365 Groups for years. Engage communities, which are built on top of M365 Groups and SharePoint sites, are now part of that ecosystem. How it works Labels come from Purview, not Engage. There is no new admin setting in the Viva Engage admin center to turn this on or off. Your sensitivity labels are configured and published in Microsoft Purview, and those settings now apply to Engage communities the same way they apply to Teams and SharePoint. Labels are synced across all three surfaces. An Engage community's sensitivity label is shared with its linked M365 Group and SharePoint site. When a label is applied to one, it synchronizes across all three. This means your label governance is consistent â not fragmented. Existing communities are not automatically labeled. Communities created before this rollout will remain in an unlabeled state. They won't have a label auto-assigned. Admins can apply labels to existing communities in bulk using existing PowerShell scripts against the linked M365 Groups or SharePoint sites, no new tooling is needed. Applying a label via those surfaces will trigger the sync to Engage. Labeling can be mandatory or optional. Whether users must pick a label when creating a community is controlled by your Purview label policy. In the label policy publishing flow, under "Groups and sites > Settings," there's a checkbox to make site labeling mandatory. If you check it, users will be required to select a label when creating a community. If you don't, the label picker appears but community creation is still allowed without a selection. Default labels are set in Purview. If mandatory labeling is enabled and a user hasn't picked a label, the creation flow pre-populates a default. That default is determined by your label policy settings in Purview â Purview suggests the lowest-priority label with the right scope, but you can configure a different one. On Day 1, before an Engage-specific default is configured, the existing site default label (if set) will pre-populate. Community admins and owners can change labels after creation. This isn't locked to tenant admins. Community admins and owners will be able to update the label via community settings in Viva Engage or through the M365 admin center group listings. ttings. Programmatic community creation still works. If you create communities via the Graph API's /community endpoint, the label won't be set through that call â there's no Graph API support for setting labels directly on communities in this release. However, after creation, you can apply the label via PowerShell targeting the linked M365 Group or SharePoint site, which will sync to Engage. Your existing automation flows won't break; they just need a label-setting step added if you need one. The governance tension we've heard The most substantive concern we've received, and it's a legitimate one, comes from organizations that have configured their Purview label policies to enforce private-only labels for groups and sites. These organizations allowed public Engage communities precisely because Engage wasn't subject to sensitivity label governance. When Engage joins that ecosystem, their Purview policy will apply â and if their policy only permits private-supporting labels, new Engage communities will only be creatable as private communities. We want to be direct about this: Purview sensitivity label policies are tenant-wide and can't be scoped to individual workloads. There is no way to say "apply this policy to Teams and SharePoint but not Engage." Engage communities are built on M365 Groups and SharePoint sites, and they share the same label scope in order to stay in sync. If your organization has strict private-only governance and you need to continue creating public Engage communities, the practical path is: Create a public-supporting sensitivity label (e.g., "General - Internal Communications") Publish it to admins only â not your entire user base â so it doesn't accidentally appear in Teams or SharePoint creation flows for end users Apply this label to Engage communities via the admin center or PowerShell scripts Optionally, publish the label to your entire user base and use automated scripts to monitor Groups and Sites for misuse of that public label and correct them This is a workaround, not an ideal solution. We've heard the feedback clearly: Engage's use case â broad internal communication and knowledge sharing, is fundamentally different from SharePoint or Teams collaboration, and a one-size-fits-all label scope creates real tension. We're tracking this as a design consideration and have raised it with the Purview team. If you want to formally register this feedback, submit a Design Change Request (DCR) with your Microsoft Account team asking for per-workload label scoping support. What sensitivity labels do NOT change Community discoverability. All Engage communities remain discoverable to all users regardless of sensitivity label. Labels don't create "hidden" communities. A private community is visible in search â users just can't read the content without being a member. What users can see in search. Search results are governed by access control lists (ACLs), not sensitivity labels. Users will only see content they have permission to access. Your custom label taxonomy. Labels like "Confidential" or "Highly Confidential" are defined by your organization in Purview. There's no universal label structure â your configuration is yours. Frequently asked questions Can I test this in a staging tenant before it hits production? This rolls out to production tenants starting March 31. There isn't a separate staging path for this feature. We recommend using this window before rollout to review your Purview label policies, identify any communities where label assignment may create issues, and prepare admin and end user documentation. What happens if we have no sensitivity labels configured in Purview at all? If you don't use sensitivity labels for groups and sites, this change will have no impact. Community creation will support the privacy picker as it always has. Will this affect Copilot? Yes, and this is worth thinking through. Verified answers and content in private communities are scoped to members of that community. If your governance pushes more communities to private, that content becomes less accessible to Copilot for org-wide knowledge retrieval. If broad knowledge sharing is a goal, this is a factor to weigh in your label policy decisions. Will there be any visual change for end users? Users creating communities will see a sensitivity label dropdown in the creation flow. If your organization has labels published to users, they'll be able to select from those labels. If mandatory labeling is not enabled, they can leave it blank. If a community has a label, it will be visible in the community header. What to do before March 31 Review your Purview label policies. Specifically check whether you have mandatory labeling enabled for groups and sites, and what default label is configured. This will determine what your users see in community creation. Check for existing communities with label mismatches. If your linked Groups or SharePoint sites already have labels applied, confirm that those labels are ones that make sense for public community use. Prepare your community admins. Let them know the label picker is coming and what they should (or shouldn't) select. Prepare end user guidance if needed. For most organizations this will be low-friction. But if you have a complex label taxonomy or strict governance, proactive communication helps.Monday Masterclass Season 2 â Week 4 Designing Events Employees Remember
Great events donât just deliver information â they create moments people remember, return to, and build on. In Week 4 of the Viva Engage Monday Masterclass Season 2, we wrapped up the series by focusing on how to design events that drive participation, trust, and momentum before, during, and after the moment. This session brought together product insights, customer examples, and practical guidance to help communicators and community leaders turn events into ongoing engagement engines. If youâve ever hosted an event that felt successful in the moment â but fizzled right after âor if you had questions on how to drive engagement beyond the event... this session was for you. Why host events in Viva Engage? Instead of treating events as one-off calendar invites, hosting them in Viva Engage creates a single, continuous experience. When you host events within a community, you target the audience for the event and discovery happens across your network. Before the event: Build awareness and anticipation with announcements, pinned posts, and seeded questions. During the event: Centralize participation through questions, discussions, reactions, and upvotes â all in one place. After the event: Keep the conversation alive with recordings, recaps, followups, and searchable knowledge people can return to. This approach helps events support broader goals like leadership visibility, culture building, learning, and community connection â not just attendance. Event formats that fit your goals The session walked through how different event formats support different outcomes, including: Broadcasts Ideal for large, one-to-many moments like town halls or major announcements. Meetings Better suited for learning sessions, office hours, and interactive discussions. Inperson or textonly events Flexible options that still keep the conversation anchored in Engage. Choosing the right format isnât about feature checklists â itâs about optimizing for the experience you want attendees to have. Before, during, after: designing the full event lifecycle The session emphasized thinking about events as a connected journey, not a single time slot. Before the event Promote early with clear value and calls to action Share teaser posts tied to key themes Seed conversation with openended questions During the event Guide participation clearly Use moderation and upvotes intentionally Keep conversation focused in the event feed After the event Share recordings and highlights Publish a recap thatâs skimmable and actionable Continue answering questions and extending the discussion This is where events shift from âdoneâ to durable. Customer spotlight: turning events into learning rhythms We also highlighted how customers are using Viva Engage events to create repeatable learning moments, not just onetime sessions â from biweekly Copilot learning hours to office hours that build steady adoption momentum. The common thread: Events work best when theyâre part of a rhythm, not a reaction. Keep learning with the Viva Engage Masterclass This session capped off Season 2 of the Viva Engage Monday Masterclass, which covered: Week 1: Beyond the basics â roles, moderation, and community configuration https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/customer-hub/monday-masterclass-your-guide-to-the-viva-engage-essentials/session-7/ Week 2: AI-powered engagement in Viva Engage https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/customer-hub/monday-masterclass-your-guide-to-the-viva-engage-essentials/session-8/ Week 3: Campaigns and storytelling https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/customer-hub/monday-masterclass-your-guide-to-the-viva-engage-essentials/session-9/ Week 4: Designing events employees remember All session slides and recordings can be found here Broadcast and meetings require Microsoft Teams, available as part of the suite or as a standalone. Learn more: Licensing updates extend access to advanced capabilities in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Places | Microsoft Community Hub"
Scaling Copilot adoption with the Copilot Adoption Community in Viva Engage
Organizations everywhere are embracing AI, but getting value takes more than turning on a tool. It takes shared learning, practical examples, and a place where people can build confidence over time. The Copilot Adoption Community in Viva Engage is an out-of-the-box template that helps people learn and use Copilot together, whether they are using Microsoft 365 Copilot or Copilot Chat. The best way for employees to learn to use AI is by seeing coworkers like them try it, talk about what worked (and what didnât), and make it feel safe to jump in. The Copilot Adoption Community brings those everyday moments into one place, so learning stays visible and people can easily see, try, and share whatâs helping them do real work. Our data reveals that users who engaged with the Copilot Adoption Community show +30% more active days on Microsoft 365 Copilot compared to users in the same network who didnât interact with the Copilot Adoption Community (Internal Microsoft study over a 12-month period, June 2024âJuly 2025). You also donât have to start from scratch. Microsoft provides weekly suggested content, like #PromptOfTheWeek, short how-to resources, and product updates, that you can edit to match your companyâs voice. Getting Started with Copilot Adoption Community The Copilot Adoption Community can be activated in a few clicks, creating a single place to learn, experiment, and share what works with Copilot. Itâs available to all tenants with Viva Engage enabled and requires no additional Copilot or Viva Suite licensing. Who itâs for: admins enable and set up the community; comms and adoption leads run content, campaigns, and champion engagement. Itâs a single hub for: AI announcements Training plans Success stories âWhatâs newâ updates Ask me anything (AMA) events, office hours, and leadership messages Step 1: Create your community Viva Engage admins will see a banner in the home feed and in the Engage Admin Center with options to learn more and create the community. Already have an AI or Copilot community? You can apply the Copilot Adoption Community features to an existing community. This adds the setup checklist, suggested members, and suggested contentâwithout changing your current posts or customizations. Step 2: Customize your community Your new community includes a customizable cover photo and description, is marked as an official community, and comes with the onboarding checklist below. Pin resources to make key links easy to find (for example: training, policies, or FAQs). Review suggested content from a Microsoft-curated library that refreshes weekly. Everything is editable before you publish. Add a community expert by selecting members as experts. You can add more experts at any time. Add members with dynamic suggestions as Copilot licenses roll out, or add members manually. Create a post to get things moving. Pro tip: use Suggested Content for your first post, or start with a warm welcome. Step 3: Make your community the place to go for Copilot news and learning Once your community is live, encourage champions and Copilot enthusiasts to participate. Tiffany Terry-Hughes, Senior Manager of IT Communications at Micron, told us: Our Copilot Adoption Community has been a great place for people to share their prompts and use cases, short videos on how to perform Copilot actions within applications, and essentially grow not just the community and user base, but everyoneâs ability to become experts and influencers. There are people who are not on my team, who Iâve never met before, who are sharing their use casesâand Iâm choosing to mark them as experts in this community. Terry-Hughes and her team keep Copilot adoption practical with frequent communications and regular training. âWe showcase specific use cases that we know our employees could benefit from,â she said. Learn more about how the communications team at Micron are advancing Copilot Adoption with Viva Engage. As you plan content for your Copilot Adoption Community, use these best practices to keep posts relevant, engaging, and easy to try: Focus on Copilot scenarios people encounter in their daily work. Highlight real examples from employees, not just official guidance. Encourage visible participation from leaders or champions. Maintain a consistent cadence, and use short series when a topic needs reinforcement (and mix formats like tips, polls, questions, and short videos). Start by reviewing Microsoftâs suggested content each week and sharing what fits your employees. Suggested content now shows a Posted status and timestamp so you can track what youâve shared. Viva Engage admins with the Copilot Adoption Community enabled get an email when new suggested content is published.
Viva Engage masterclass season 2âSession 3: Campaigns and storytelling
When communication is intentional, it doesnât just inform. It creates clarity and connection. In Session 3 of the Viva Engage Masterclass (season 2), we covered practical ways to build that impact with Storylines, Campaigns, and series-based storytelling. Below is a recap of the key takeaways you can apply right away. Why storytelling matters right now Work is full of constant signals: email, chat, posts, meetings, and in-person interruptions. Microsoft Work Trend Index research describes this as the âinfinite workday,â where employee attention is limited and company communications are easy to miss. What helps is narrative coherence over time: messages that connect into a story employees can recognize, follow, and act on. The goal is to build understanding and momentum. Use Storylines to build leadership presence If leaders want to build trust and ongoing connection, their Storyline is an important place for them to show up in Viva Engage. A simple way to think about it: Email is delivery Meetings are moments Storyline is presence In Viva Engage, Storyline gives leaders a consistent way to share updates, add context, and invite conversation in one place. What Storylines provide: Intelligence and targeting: reach defined audiences with the right message. Multi-way dialogue: make communication two-way, so people can respond, ask questions, and build on the message. Measurable impact: understand what landed through engagement and analytics. To set a leader up for success with Storyline, start by making sure theyâre identified as a leader in the product, assigning delegates who can help draft and publish posts, and defining the audience they want to reach. Then confirm they have the right profile details and a short âaboutâ that matches their role. Agree on a simple cadence (for example, one post a week), draft the first few posts together, and keep a short list of topics they can pull from. Strong posts are clear about what theyâre trying to do. The session shared a simple way to pressure-test drafts before posting following the 3C model: Context: Whatâs happening? Clarity: Why does it matter? Connection: What do I want people to do? One more reminder that came through clearly: engagement doesnât happen by accidentâask for it. End with a question or prompt that makes it easy to respond. Used well, Storyline becomes a reliable place for employees to hear directly from leaders and respond in the moment. It helps leaders show up consistently, keep updates connected over time, and build trust through two-way conversation. Identify leaders and manage audiences in Viva Engage | Microsoft Learn Storylines in Viva Engage - Microsoft Support The Engage Chronicles: Leadership Lessons for the Digital Age Run social campaigns that invite participation Campaigns help the organization rally around a shared theme through repetition and participation. In the session, we discussed how campaigns can support different goals, such as: Driving business initiatives Crowdsourcing ideas and experiences Creating belonging through employee stories We also covered the difference between: Official (global) campaigns that roll up content across Storylines and communities Community campaigns that stay within a specific community (lighter-weight, designed for local participation) A key takeaway: campaigns work best when theyâre designed so employees can join the storyânot just read it. Here are a few campaign examples we shared in the session that translate well to Viva Engage: Win. Win. Win. Invite people to share weekly wins, shout-outs, or lessons learnedâand encourage others to add their own. Product launch or roll out. Announce a new tool or change, then keep everything in one place: tips, FAQs, help resources, and Q&A. 30 days of ____. Pick a theme and post a prompt each day (or each week) to keep the story moving and make it easy to join in. Leadership series. Have leaders take turns sharing what theyâre learning, reading, or trying, then ask employees to share their own. Recognition and gratitude. Spotlight individuals and teams who are making an impact and invite peers to add praise. A simple recipe for success: be clear on the goal, make it easy to participate, and keep a steady posting rhythm. Even though itâs quick to create a campaign, the work is in the planning. The session shared a straightforward timeline: Two+ weeks before: define the theme, align stakeholders One week before: define success (KPIs), finalize messaging Days before: prep content and resources, remind contributors Kickoff: publish the Campaign and start the rhythm Bring it together with a simple plan: set a clear goal, give people an easy way to participate, and keep the Campaign active with a steady rhythm. Track whatâs landing as you go, and close the loop by sharing progress and outcomes. Campaigns in Viva Engage - Microsoft Support Set up official campaigns in Viva Engage | Microsoft Learn Think series, not a post One of the clearest themes from the session: if you want adoption or behavior change, one message wonât do it. We talked about the ârule of 7â concept. People often need repeated exposure before they act. The practical takeaway is to build a series with: A consistent theme A recognizable visual style A predictable rhythm When employees âwatch for the next drop,â your #campaign has started to stick. The session also introduced âtrend-jackingâ: using safe, current memes and social trends to make internal communications feel more creative and fun. Why this works: relevance, clarity, and connection We closed with research on how communications cut through the noiseâespecially for younger employees who have learned to filter fast. The three elements of communication that cut through the noise are: Relevant: tailored to an employeeâs context (not just âfor everyoneâ). Start with what the update means for peopleâs day-to-day work. Make the âwhy it matters to meâ clear up front. Clear: easy to scan and understand quickly, with optional depth. If you need to include detail, put the most important point first and add the rest below, so people can read more when they have time. Clarity also means being specific, not vague, about dates, owners, and decisions. Connected: designed for dialogue, not âdo not replyâ broadcasting. End posts with a question thatâs easy to answer, or a prompt that invites examples. Respond to early comments so people see that engagement is welcome and valued. Over time, this builds trust and helps employees feel like theyâre part of the story, not just receiving updates. One important point: itâs not that people canât focusâitâs that theyâve built faster filters. If content doesnât signal value quickly, it wonât land. Whatâs next The Masterclass continues with Session 4: Designing events employees remember. Youâve got live events coming up soon at your company, this next session will help you plan moments that drive real participationâand follow-through. You can register for upcoming sessions and explore the full schedule at: đ https://aka.ms/VivaEngage/Masterclass
Monday Masterclass Season 2 â Week 1: Beyond the Basics in Viva Engage
We hear repeatedly how valuable it is to have a space dedicated to practical guidance, real world examples, and direct access to product experts. Monday Masterclass Season 2 builds on the essentials while introducing capabilities that help organizations scale their employee communications and community strategy with confidence. This yearâs program includes four live sessions that âgo beyond the basicsâ with advanced guidance, smarter workflows, AI powered tools, and a strong focus on reach, relevance, and connection. Below, I'll recap highlights from our first session: Week 1 â Beyond the Basics Notifications: Relevance, Not Noise We kicked off with one of the most influential parts of the employee experience: notifications. We dive deep into how notifications function across Teams, mobile, email, and the inapp bell, and why smart delivery matters now more than ever. A few standout insights: Smart Notifications, now rolling out, intelligently determines for a community announcement the primary channel a user engages with mostâand only move to a secondary one if the message hasnât been consumed. Delivery respects all user preferences while reducing inbox and device clutter. Scenarios like community announcements, @mentions, new storyline posts, and replies all benefit from this ârightchannelfirstâ intelligence. The theme is clear: precision beats volume, and great communicators design with this in mind. đ Learn more: Viva Engage Explained: Notifications â covers channel behavior, digests, and configuration Manage your Viva Engage notifications (support) â how users adjust their settings Digests: The Daily & Weekly Visibility Engines We clarified the value of Engageâs digests: Daily Digest: Prioritizes leadership content, helping key updates cut through everyday noise. Weekly Digest: Highlights content users may have missedâan intentional discovery channel driven by organizational signals, relevance, and trending topics. Featured Conversations: Remain one of the strongest tools for ensuring important posts persist across both digests. For communicators, this is a massive lever. Digests reach audiences who arenât actively checking their feedâand do so with content tailored to individual interests. đ Learn more: Digests Explained (Tech Community) The Home Feed: Built In Personalization The Home Feed continues to be the front door of Viva Engage, and we unpacked the ranking signals and influence pathways that shape what employees see. Key factors include: Community membership Past interactions Organizational signals Relationships Featured conversations, announcements, and mute behavior AI-driven relevance scores We also outlined the tactics different roles can use to influence the feed, whether through featured posts, dynamic membership, leadership participation, or simply encouraging lightweight employee engagement (react, reply, follow, join). This section reinforced that the feed isnât random, itâs an engine, and every role has influence. đ Learn more: Home feed Explained (Tech Community) Feature a conversation in Viva Engage (Microsoft Support) Create dynamic communities Content & Contributors: How Everyone Shapes Reach We dive into Content creation, the anatomy of a post and how to use Copilot to enhance your posting! We walked through different post types and we broke them down by persona, showing how each contributes to Engage. For example: Corporate Communicators Publish announcements Feature conversations Pin posts Review analytics Network & Community Admins Manage community configuration Set dynamic membership Mark official communities Shape governance Assign experts Add Community agent Employees Favorite communities Interact to improve their own feed relevance Post, reply, react, and contribute to knowledge flow Each role meaningfully impacts network health, visibility, and culture. đ Learn more: Microsoft-Viva-Engage-adoption-guide â includes guidance on community setup, managing conversations, and best practices User Guide Moderation & Governance: A Modernized Approach We walked through the playbook with guidance on scalable governance practices: Keyword monitoring and Report a Conversation help route safety signals to the right reviewers. AI-powered theme moderation understands contextânot just keywordsâand enables proactive detection. Move Conversation capabilities ensure discussions land in the right place. View only mode supports sensitive or read only scenarios. Together as well as the others we walked through allow admins to encourage respectful networks without slowing down participation. đ Support documentation: Keyword Monitoring in Viva Engage (Microsoft Support) Report a conversation (Microsoft Support) AI theme moderation overview Moderation playbook (Adoption) The Community Management Toolkit We introduced a rich set of tools for community managers, including: Copilot powered prompts for conversation starters, announcements, and event planning Engagement tactics to keep communities vibrant Post types (Questions, Praise, Polls, Articles) and their ideal uses Anatomy of a high performing post âGood â Better â Bestâ content comparisons These resources help community managers evolve beyond day to day posting and into strategic facilitation. AI in Viva Engage: A New Era of Engagement This yearâs masterclass marks a fundamental shift: AI is now woven into nearly every part of the Viva Engage experience. We walk through how Copilot assists: Before you post Predicting questions your audience will ask Locating vague or unclear language Adding calls to action Making messages more engaging After you post Summarizing comment threads Identifying themes and patterns Pulling sentiment cues Drafting recaps for stakeholders For moderators Brainstorming keyword lists Creating response plans Tracking usage trends Drafting workflows Across all these scenarios, AI reduces busy work so communicators and admins can focus on clarity, connection, and culture. A Day in the Life: Copilot + Viva Engage We also included a behind the scenes look at how our team uses Copilot and Viva Engage throughout the day to manage customer communities, identify top themes, draft content, and stay ahead of fastmoving conversations. Itâs a practical illustration of how AI and human insight work together to scale impact. Whatâs Next Week 2 of the Masterclass, AI-Powered Engagement! We will dive deeper into Copilot in Engage, Community Agent, Copilot Community and activation strategies. If Week 1 was about how the system works, Week 2 is about how to amplify what you do with it. You can register for upcoming sessions and explore the full schedule here: https://aka.ms/VivaEngage/Masterclass
Introducing Community Experts in Viva Engage
Weâre thrilled to announce the addition of a new role within a Viva Engage community, community experts. A community expert is a member of a community who is assigned by a community admin to serve as a subject matter expert within a specific community. Adding a community expert role to your community ensures additional support and engagement throughout the community. A community expert can mark the best answer, pin posts, and ensure valuable insights and accurate information flow within the community. However, a community expert does not have the ability to manage members, assign roles etc. like a community admin. Once designated as a âcommunity expertâ, that label will only show within that community. Note: This feature is available as part of your existing Microsoft 365 licensing. Community expertise is determined by community admins within your organizations, not Microsoft. Microsoft does not have the ability to define a community expert in your organization. Who can be a community expert? The role of community experts is to support peers, share valuable insights, and ensure knowledge flows across departments, making information accessible and reliable for everyone. Community experts arenât limited to high-level executivesâin fact, you should seek individuals who are deeply knowledgeable, actively engaged, and approachable. Below is a guide to identify potential community experts, with examples and scenarios to illustrate ideal candidates. Community expert capabilities today: Marking âBest answerâ: With the new role, community experts can now mark an answer as the best answer on a question post. Pinning/Unpinning a post: Community experts can now pin posts that they want to highlight in a community. 1. Defining an effective Community Expert: Subject Matter Expertise: Has specialized knowledge in a field or topic that benefits others across the organization. They can answer technical questions or provide insights into niche areas. Active & Engaged: Participates regularly in community discussions, contributing thoughtful responses and guiding discussions constructively. Approachable & Helpful: Willing to share their knowledge openly, whether through direct answers or by directing people to the right resources. Trusted by Peers: Known within their team or department as a reliable source of accurate information, with a reputation for being insightful and dependable. 2. Examples of community expert personas by department Technical (Engineer): Someone who may not be the head of a department but has extensive experience in specific technical stacks (e.g., cloud infrastructure, coding languages, hardware troubleshooting). Scenario: A mid-level software engineer, often answers questions related to backend development and cloud computing in a 'teams' chat or via email or even in an Engage community, providing clear explanations and solutions. Their insights are practical and resonate with peers. Legal: A non-executive legal team member who has detailed knowledge of compliance, intellectual property, or contract law. Scenario: An associate in the legal team within a company has guided several product teams on compliance questions. While they are not in management or a senior level leader, their guidance on data protection protocols has become invaluable across departments. And they are likely to have the most accurate information or help verify what is accurate. Communications Management: A mid-level comms lead who excels in crafting messaging strategies, managing internal and external communications, and navigating crisis communications. Scenario: A communications manager frequently advises teams on tailoring messaging for key audiences. When the company has faced an issue, they have been involved and instrumental in responding to the crisis and can be trusted to speak on behalf of the organization/team. Supply Chain Operations: A logistics coordinator or mid-level operations manager with deep insight into vendor relations, inventory management, or distribution channels. Scenario: A logistics coordinator known for their in-depth understanding of vendor logistics and delivery timelines. They regularly share tips on optimizing supply chain processes, helping various departments troubleshoot and improve. Facilities Management: Someone with an understanding of facilities operations, maintenance scheduling, or building management systems. Scenario: A facilities specialist within a specific office location, consistently advises teams on equipment maintenance schedules and energy efficiency projects. Their practical experience makes him the go-to person for questions on facilities management within that office. Note: Self-nomination and peer nomination for community experts are currently in progress and coming soon. Managing community experts Assignment Assigning a community expert: Community admins in a community may assign community experts based on their knowledge and the abilities of members in that community. In the member panel in the right rail, community admins will see a new section called: âCommunity Experts.â In this section, there is a link to, âAssign.â Once an admin clicks on assign, it opens a modal where the admin may add experts by clicking the âMark as expertâ button. Removal Removing an expert: After assigning a community expert, an admin can remove the expert by doing the following: Navigate to the member panel in the right rail. Click on the â+â sign in the Community Experts section. Withdrawal Withdrawing from the community expert role: After being made a community expert, a user may withdraw from this role at any time by taking the following steps: In the member panel in the right rail, click on the number of experts in the community expert section. This shows all the experts in that community with the user at the top and an option to, âWithdraw.â This then opens a modal that informs the user of the action they are taking. And the user may withdraw. Community experts play a crucial role in fostering a knowledgeable and collaborative environment, enhancing community effectiveness within Viva Engage. Stay tuned for additional capabilities that will further empower community experts.Introducing agents in Viva Engage communities: Your AI-powered community expert
Launching in Public Preview today, Microsoft 365 Copilot can give every Engage community its own agent, grounded in the conversations and content that matter most to your community. Itâs designed to provide time-savings, facilitate trusted knowledge sharing, and make expertise readily available in organizations so that communities can thrive with less effort. Read on to discover how an AI-powered community expert can foster community engagement and growth.Viva Engage Festival 2025: Real Stories. Real Impact. Real Community
Join us on November 12 for the Viva Engage Festival 2025, a free, fully virtual global event hosted by SWOOP Analytics that brings together the Viva Engage community to connect, share, and learn from one anotherâs experiences. This practitioner-led festival showcases real-world success stories, leadership engagement strategies, and community-building insights from across the world. This event will arm you with actionable ideas to elevate your Viva Engage experience. You'll discover a unique blend of practical advice and uplifting inspiration drawn directly from customers' journeys and achievements. Featured Speakers From internal campaigns that unite families to strategic transformations that connect thousands, this yearâs lineup is packed with inspiration: Cat Owen, Medibank A heartwarming campaign that united families across Australia. Jordan Gilliland, Reece Their journey from Workplace to Viva Engageâand what they learned. Sam Parker, ACC New Zealand Making leadership visible, accessible, and actively involved. Louise Durmus Kay, Danske Bank Using Viva Engage to drive strategic change during a major transformation. Jeanette Vikbacka-Castaing, Capgemini Turning the dreaded all-company âblack holeâ into a thriving community. CĂ©cile Kozinski, Schneider Electric & Dan Mulcahey, Nuveen Leadership engagement and top-down communication that drives adoption. Carla Guest, Siemens Energy Moderation that Matters: Building Safe and Engaging Communities Ray Gonzales, Eli Lilly Why communities win: How culture & connection fuel productivity Be among the very first to experience an exclusive unveiling of the 2025/26 Viva Engage Swoop Benchmarking Report. Get the insiderâs view on the good, the bad, and the ugly before anyone else. Youâll hear directly from the experts at Swoop, Sharon Dawson, Dr Laurence Lock Lee & Cai Kjaer! Register now! Donât miss out on this celebration of connection, leadership, and transformation. Join us on November 12 and be part of a global community thatâs shaping the future of employee engagement. No matter where you are in the world, thereâs a way for you to participate: register for a session that matches your time zone or challenge yourself to wake up early or stay up late to gain insights from peers across different regions. This is your chance to connect, learn, and be inspired alongside industry leaders worldwide. Register below: APAC EMEA AMER Don't miss out on joining this FREE event hosted by Swoop Analytics that celebrates our customer community, and the amazing progress we've made together. We look forward to seeing you there!
