Viva Engage offers a variety of ways employees can communicate with one another in conversations, including @mentions, replies to posts or comments you’ve made, or when people you follow have posted something.
Though within any communication space, it’s important to strike a balance between staying informed and avoiding overload. Fortunately, Viva Engage provides employees the flexibility to customize their notification settings to suit their own preferences and needs. In this blog post, we will explore how Viva Engage notifications work, how to enable or disable notifications to optimize your experience, and share what improvements are being made to help keep you informed.
Notifications at a Glance
Employees can receive notifications across several notification channels in Viva Engage. Specifically, this includes the Viva Engage bell, the Viva Engage inbox, email, Microsoft Teams, and through mobile push (in the Viva Engage app).
Notifications via Viva Engage
Within the Viva Engage web and mobile experience, you can be notified through the bell, inbox and/or mobile push channels (if the Viva Engage app is installed). You can view up to 29 days’ worth of notifications in the Viva Engage Bell.
Notifications via Email
Viva Engage can also notify you of updates directly via your email, for example, when you’re @mentioned in a post, or when there is a new Storyline Announcement from a leader, and also when the Daily and Weekly digest emails are sent. Employees can react and reply directly from emails. See the Digests Explained blog post for more details about how these work.
Notifications via Microsoft Teams
Viva Engage also provides you with the option of being notified via Microsoft Teams, through the Activity Feed. Similarly, you can be notified of important updates including a new Community Announcement that’s being made, when you’re @mentioned, and more. You can view up to 30 days worth of notifications in Teams.
Managing your Viva Engage Notifications Settings
There are three locations where you can manage and customize your notifications settings:
Viva Engage Web
You can manage your Viva Engage notifications settings directly in the web experience. This is where you can manage your preferences about email notification for the different communities you are part of.
Select the Settings icon in the top right hand corner. Then, choose “Edit Settings”. Next, select the “Notifications” tab and this will present a drop-down menu for all the different events you can be notified for via email.
Viva Engage Mobile App
From the Viva Engage mobile app, employees can also manage notifications settings for receiving Mobile Push notifications directly in the Mobile app experience. This option will allow you to customize your preferences for receiving Mobile Push notifications, as well as email notifications from Viva Engage.
Microsoft Teams
Employees can customize preferences to receive Teams notifications for Viva Engage directly in the Microsoft Teams experience. Here, you will be able to customize the different types of notifications you’d like to receive across events like @mentions, Leadership Announcements, and more.
Select the ellipsis in the top right hand corner of your Teams interface and select “Settings”. Then, select “Notifications” and then scroll down to select “Edit” for Viva Engage.
Example of customizing Viva Engage Teams notifications
Best Practices for managing your notifications
By managing your Viva Engage notifications, you can fine tune your notifications according to your needs.
- Community Managers/Admins: If you are a community manager or admin, determine how you’ll want to be notified for activity in that specific community. When your community is brand new, or when you have an active campaign happening, you may want to be notified of any new activity going on in that community.
- Experiment! Adjust your notifications and see how it works for a few weeks. Did you feel like you are staying up to date or do you need a bit more information from a specific community or leader? As a best practice, revisit your notifications quarterly to ensure your preferences are up-to-date.
Remember, effective notification management can contribute to a more productive and focused work environment, allowing you to interact with your coworkers on your own terms.
Upcoming improvements to Notifications Experiences
Based on customer feedback and our own research and insights, we are constantly working towards improving the overall user experience with notifications, especially at reducing notification noise where possible. We have made several improvements to reduce the volume of emails in regards to announcements, storyline posts, conversations, and replies.
Updates to community announcements
Moving forward, when a new Community Announcement is made, the email notification will be delayed by two hours, while all other notifications (Teams, Mobile Push, Inbox) will continue to trigger instantly. If the user consumes the announcement in one of those 3 channels, the email notification will no longer be sent, therefore reducing redundant and duplicative notifications.
For time sensitive or critical Community Announcements that require an email notification to send instantly, users can select the “Essential Announcement” option. This can be done directly in the Announcement creation process by selecting the “Notify members via email” option. By selecting the Essential Announcement option, this will guarantee the email notification will trigger instantly when your Announcement is shared and bypass existing notification settings set by the receiver to ensure they get the message.
Updates to storyline post announcements
When a new storyline post is created, the email notification will be delayed by 30 minutes, while all other notifications (Teams, Bell, Mobile Push) will continue to trigger instantly. If employees consume the Storyline post in one of those 3 channels, the email notification will no longer be sent.
Additionally, Admins can set the default notification experience for storyline posts in the admin center.
Updates to conversation experiences
Based on customer feedback we are improving conversation notification experiences. To improve both the original conversation starter (ie. Threadstarter) experience, as well as the experience for one who leaves a comment on the thread (commenter), we are now reducing email notifications for both these scenarios.
The employee who starts the conversation will only receive email notifications for the first 5 comments left on storyline & community posts and the first 3 comments left on storyline & community announcements. If the employee is @mentioned within the conversation they’ll continue to receive an email. When an employee replies to this conversation, they will only receive a notification if they are @mentioned in the same conversation.
FAQs
1. Can I turn off email notifications at an admin level?
Today, we do not offer the option for notifications to be managed at an Admin-level; however, employees can customize their own email notifications preferences directly within the Viva Engage experience (see above).
2. How can I manage my preferences for receiving Digest emails?
Digest email preferences can be adjusted at a per-user level. At the bottom of your Digest email, you will see a direct option to “Unsubscribe” from the Digest email. After selecting this option, employees will no longer receive this Digest email moving forward.
3. How can I manage my notifications for new Storyline Posts from people I follow?
Employee also have the option of managing their notifications preferences for Storyline posts from individual users. This allows recipients to determine where they want to be notified of a new Storyline post created by people they follow. Perform the following steps to manage Storyline post notification preferences:
i. Navigate to the employee you follow that you want to manage notifications settings for.
ii. Select the ‘Bell’ icon in the upper right-hand corner of the employee’s profile page.
iii. At this point, the employee will see three channels where they can be notified, including Viva Engage, Microsoft Teams, and Email.
Additionally, the employee can choose to “Unfollow” the employee, therefore no longer receiving further notifications about new Storyline posts.
4. Can I manage my preferences for receiving notifications for Live Events?
For any Viva Engage Live Events, employees will receive notifications about these events directly in the Bell and the Mobile Push channels. There is currently no setting to turn on or off these Live Event notifications.
Supporting Resources
• Learn more about Viva Engage Digests here.
• Learn more about managing Viva Engage notifications here.
• Learn more about managing Viva Engage Digests here.
• Learn more about managing Viva Engage Announcement notifications here.
Additional References
The following table explains how each Notifications setting controls behavior related to Notifications:
|
Setting – Notify me when … |
Behavior |
|
There are updates from my groups (daily) |
Enables a daily digest of conversations from communities where the user is a member. This is not sent when there are no relevant posts. |
|
I receive a message in my inbox |
Enables an email when the user receives a message in their Viva Engage inbox. Currently this includes: 1) Announcements in Viva Engage 2) At-Mentions in Viva Engage posts 3) Replies directly to me in Viva Engage 4) Praises of me in Viva Engage |
|
I get new followers |
Enables an email digest of people who followed me in Viva Engage. |
|
I install a new application |
Enables an email notification when an admin installs a new application for Viva Engage. |
|
I log in from somewhere new |
Enables an email notification when I login to Viva Engage from a different device or browser. |
|
I post a message via email |
Enables an email notification which is a confirmation when I attempt to post to Viva Engage by sending an email. |
|
Someone invites me to a group |
Enables an email notification when someone adds me to a Viva Engage community. |
|
Someone likes messages I posted (daily) |
Enables a daily digest of likes and reactions I receive on my posts in Viva Engage. |
|
Someone requests to join a private group I administer |
Enables an email notification for join requests of private communities where I am an owner. |
|
There are highlights from groups I haven’t joined (weekly) |
Enables a weekly digest of top conversations from across my Viva Engage network. This is a weekly Discovery email. |
|
There are new suggestions for people to follow (weekly) |
Enables a weekly digest of suggestions of people to follow. This is not sent when there are no relevant suggestions. |
Employees can select specific communities where ALL conversations and replies will sent by email:
|
Setting – Notify me when … |
Behavior |
|
There is new activity in the following groups: Ask HR Contoso All Company Contoso Life …etc |
Enables email notifications for all conversations and replies which are posted. |