Today, at Microsoft Inspire, we announced new ways Microsoft Viva helps empower a high performance workforce that can meet the challenges of today’s economic environment. This includes new experiences coming into Microsoft Viva Engage.
These new features, and more such as Answers in Viva, will be available as part of the Viva suite as well as a new simplified communications solution for Viva features across all of Viva Engage, Viva Connections, and Viva Amplify capabilities (coming soon).
Communicating across tenants
Multi-tenant publishing is coming to engage.
Multi-Tenant Organizations (MTOs), or organizations that have more than one system for identity management, storage, sites, or permissions, are common and face unique challenges. Many companies and conglomerates consist of mergers, subsidiaries, and other situations that require separate business units. Microsoft customers have long sought to have a seamless cross-tenant communications and collaborations experience, and we’re excited to announce that Viva Engage will begin supporting these scenarios through Storylines and Leadership Corner.
The release of Storylines has allowed leaders to share corporate communications at scale, and Leadership Corner has further extended that power through leader identification and Storyline announcements to broaden the reach of these posts. And coming soon, Storyline Announcements will be able to span across trusted tenants within an organization, allowing leaders to engage in meaningful dialog for all employees.
Here are the MTO-enabled experiences coming to Microsoft Viva customers this year:
- Leadership Storyline Announcements: Leaders in the hub tenant will now have the ability to post to multiple tenants that make up the MTO. This unlocks the ability for MTO users across tenants to consume content from their broader organizational leaders and interact with the content, as if it all resided in a single, large tenant.
- Leadership Announcements can reach all trusted employees via Notifications in Outlook, Teams and Engage, enabling frictionless interaction with the content as if it resided in a single tenant.
- Conversation Analytics will support consolidated insights aggregated across the tenants, as well as per tenant insights. Admins can manage which users can publish MTO Storylines.
- Leadership Corner feed will include MTO announcements and posts from Leaders.
Storyline posts can be shared across tenants. The posts include the home tenant next to the user’s name.
Next on our radar is to bring MTO support for Viva Engage Communities, AMAs, Campaigns, Events, and Answers in Viva.
Draft and Schedule Posts
Not quite ready to press “Post”? Save a draft post in Viva Engage or schedule a post/announcement to publish at a specific time – a critical feature for communicators planning a campaign or needing to publish something at a particular moment – such as earnings calls, holidays, or different time zones for international employees. This will also work with delegate posting (posting on behalf of others) for the web.
Quickly save your message as a draft with a single tap. And easily pick up where you left off, from wherever you are, with Drafts available on iOS and Android Viva Engage apps.
Answers in Viva functionality coming to Communities
Answers in Viva helps people in organizations learn from each other by asking and answering questions. Since releasing Answers this spring, organizations have been asking for ways to use Answers within new or existing communities, and within the confines of specific departments or business units.
Admins can turn on full Answers functionality for a community in Community Settings
We’re happy to announce that organizations will soon be able to enable Answers in their communities. This offers new ways to:
• Show ‘related questions’ to minimize repeat questions and save people time.
• Quickly scan questions through visual updates—including asking questions with a title and details separately.
• Reward community members with badges for answering questions.
• Measure activity on questions in these communities as they will now be counted within Answers Analytics and Global Analytics.
• Expand the reach of popular questions and solutions.
• Expand visibility so that questions get in front of the right people by delivering them in feeds and digests.
Get related questions when you begin typing your question.
Answers in communities will be available for Microsoft Viva customers and in private preview in the coming months.
Accelerate onboarding
We are introducing a new onboarding card designed to assist users in their journey with Answers. For networks already utilizing topics, this onboarding card will guide employees towards following suitable topics. After an employee select a few topics, they will be directed to a personalized feed that reflects their preferences.
For networks that are still building out questions and topics on Answers, this prompt helps ensure users don't come across empty feeds during their initial visit. It also helps them understand how to get started, build their reputation through badges, and ultimately use Answers to expand social knowledge across their enterprises.
Answers information panel
We’re adding a new panel for Admins to customize and educate employees on the experience and expectations of using Answers in your organization.
Once published by an admin, all employees with access to Answers in Viva will be able to view the guidelines customized to your organization. Such as including details about subject matter experts, or the best ways ask for technical support, or where to find how-to guides. These field can then be saved and available to everyone.
Customize the Answers info panel
AI suggested Topics when asking questions
Answers now leverages AI to streamline the process of asking questions by suggesting up to three topics to add to your question and aiding in routing to experts and organizing content. These topics can be existing topics or new ones you create.
Stay tuned for updates and release of this feature in the coming weeks.
Answers on Mobile
Answers is now available on iOS and Android Viva Engage apps making it easier to ask and answer questions on the go and perfect for frontline workers who use mobile as their primary device.
Ask questions and find solutions through the Viva Engage mobile app.
Receive notifications when your questions get answered, and your questions and answers will continue to help others.
Answers-focused experience of Viva Engage
An Answers-focused experience is now available for organizations that do not yet use Viva Engage. You can choose to use an Answers-focused experience through the Viva Engage admin center and hide the other Viva Engage features, such as storyline, communities and leadership corner.
You must be a Microsoft 365 Global admin to change the state of Viva Engage. If you have more than two active communities, the Viva Engage experience cannot be turned off. If Viva Engage is hidden, the backing group will respect existing data retention policies set by your organization. The admin can still export and manage data. Learn more about configuring Viva Engage and Answers experiences.
New search experiences across Viva Engage
Results from Answers in Viva are now included in Viva Engage Search
Now, Answers can be found via the Viva Engage search page results. Find results from across the network, including from Answers in Viva, directly within Viva Engage the next time you search.
Content from Answers in Viva is now available within the Engage search results.
Answers in Microsoft Search
Our goal is to surface Answers in Viva wherever the user is without leaving the context of their work. So, coming soon in Viva Engage we will provide the ability for the user to search from Microsoft Search surfaces and see results from Answers in Office.com, SharePoint.com, and Bing work search. Employees will be able to post a question to Answers in Viva from these surfaces, so they can begin finding a solution without disrupting their work.
Results from Answers in Viva now appear in Microsoft Search and Viva Engage search
Engage Search in Teams
Many people use Viva Engage directly within Microsoft Teams but still require the regular search experience to find conversations and community content. As part of these updates, you will soon be able to use the Teams search bar to search and scope the results to Viva Engage content or continue with a standard search in Teams. You must be using the Viva Engage app in Teams to see these results.
Expose Viva Engage content through the Teams search bar when using the Viva Engage app in Teams.
Alternatively, selecting enter after typing the search text lands you directly on the Viva Engage search results page showing the results from Viva Engage.
Search results showing Viva Engage content within Teams.
Go Viva!
Looking to learn more about Answers in Viva? Check out our Getting Started with Answers webinar, which included best practices on setting up Answers and tips from a Microsoft customer.
That’s it for now! Viva Engage continues to have a steadfast commitment to bring people together to connect with leaders and coworkers, find answers to questions, share their unique story, and find belonging at work. See what we shared in June and stay tuned for more product news coming soon!