Microsoft Viva is the first employee experience platform built for the digital era. Viva brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights into an integrated employee experience that empowers people and teams to be their best, from anywhere. Powered by the full breadth and depth of Microsoft 365 it is experienced through Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps that people use every day.

Learn more about Viva in this introductory blog or watch this 30-minute on-demand webinar to learn more. 

Viva Topics: uses AI to automatically organize company-wide content and expertise into relevant categories, putting knowledge to work. Topics, which came out of Project Cortex, makes Microsoft Search more powerful, and automatically surfaces topic cards as people work in apps like Office, SharePoint, and Teams. When employees click on a card, a customizable topic page appears with documents, videos, and related people.

Viva Insights: building on MyAnalytics & Workplace Analytics, Insights provide individuals, teams and leaders data-driven insights and actionable recommendations to improve productivity and wellbeing in the flow of work. Customers can rely on privacy safeguards every step of the way.

Viva Learning: a central hub for learning in Teams, with AI that recommends the right content at the right time, making learning a natural part of the day. It brings together content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and a customer’s own custom content, with easy sharing, assigning, and tracking capabilities.

Viva Connections: building on existing capabilities of SharePoint and Yammer, Viva Connections provides a curated employee destination for company communications, news, communities, and more, so everyone can stay informed and engaged. 

Viva Goals: a goal setting and management solution based on the objectives and key results (OKR) framework. It is designed to help you align your organisation's strategic priorities with individual teams and track progress of each goal. 

Viva Engage: a social community app accessible in Microsoft Teams intended to help employees connect and socialise, get answers to questions, share their unique stories and interests, and find belongingness at work. 

There are modules that are already included in your Microsoft 365 subscription, while others can be purchased separately.

If you have existing Microsoft 365 E3, E5 and SharePoint licenses, then you already have access to Viva Connections at no additional cost. It is now generally available for use.

Viva Topics is also generally available and can be purchased at USD 5.00 for each user who interacts with Topics. You can try it for free for 30 days for up to 25 users here, provided that you have qualifying Microsoft 365 and SharePoint licenses.

Viva Insights is free for personal insights that you can add into your Microsoft Teams app (just go to Apps and search Insights) but need additional license to be purchased on Workplace Analytics for managers and leaders and advanced integrations.

Viva Learning’s price is still unknown.  

For more questions about Microsoft Viva licensing, please contact us at 1800 126 499 or email us at enquiries@pa.com.au.

Viva Topics will be transactable on the CSP price list as of 1st March 2021. We’ll share more details about other offers once they become available for CSP licensing.

Yes, you can try Microsoft Viva Topics for free for up to 25 users for 30 days. It requires eligible Microsoft 365 and SharePoint plans, however, to create your free trial here:

1. Office 365 E1, E3, E5.
2. Microsoft 365 E3, E5.
3. Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Business Premium.
4. SharePoint Plan 1, Plan 2.

To learn more about Viva Topics, please contact us at 1800 126 499 or email us at enquiries@pa.com.au.

Viva Topics is based on the security and compliance of content enforced across Microsoft 365. For example, access, retention labels, data sovereignty, and information barriers are all maintained consistently before and after the activation of Viva Topics. In addition, organisations can apply restrictions on the scope and availability of topic information shared by Viva Topics.

Yes, we have a full set of admin controls for the functionality. It will ship "Off" by default so that you are able to plot the right adoption journey for your organisation.

For Viva Topics, topics will be discovered from files and pages stored in modern or classic sites. However, topic highlights will only appear on modern SharePoint pages. These pages may exist in a modern type of site such as a Communication Site or a Group Site connected to a Team. In addition, where a classic site has had modern pages added these will also feature topic highlights.

Microsoft Viva Connections is integrated into Microsoft Teams. It will be accessible via the Microsoft Teams Desktop and Mobile apps.

1. Available for Teams Desktop – First Half of 2021.
2. Available for Teams Mobile – Summer 2021.

Microsoft Viva Connections integrates content from Microsoft 365 services like SharePoint, Teams, Yammer, Microsoft Stream, and more – into a consolidated, and customizable ‘single pane’ for every employee. It gives everyone the tools they need to be successful via three interactive experiences for employees:

1. A personalised feed to enable employees to explore news and contribute to the conversation from anywhere.
2. A personalised dashboard serves as the company home for employees and is designed to be the central destination for everyone to discover resources and complete tasks.
3. A personalised resources area that allows them to get to the sites, communities, video playlists, and other content that matter most to them.

Yammer continues to be the social and community fabric across Microsoft 365, where employees can connect and have conversations around a topic, interest, or event. Microsoft Viva Connections builds on the conversations happening within Yammer communities by combining them with company resources, tasks, sites, and news from across Microsoft 365 and folds them into a single, personalised employee app.

Essentially, Yammer is a source of community content that is aggregated into Viva Connections, so everyone can stay on top of what is important to them and stay in the flow of work.

Viva Connections will build on the framework of the SharePoint home sites app in Teams, announced earlier this year. In the coming months, we will be adding additional functionality to transform Connections into the gateway for the modern employee experience.

The personal insights employees see in the Microsoft Viva Insights app for Teams, their MyAnalytics dashboard, Outlook add-in, and digest emails are only available to the individual. The data is stored and protected in the same way as their email, calendar, and Teams information.

For manager and leader insights, customers can rely on safeguards like de-identification, aggregation, and differential privacy by default.

Differential privacy adds an additional layer of protection for manager insights in both Workplace.

Analytics and the Viva Insights app for Teams, making it impossible to infer any specific information about any individual. In addition, the minimum group or team size required for data analysis cannot be lower than five people for organisational insights and 10 people for manager insights.

Viva Goals is a goal setting and management solution based on the objectives and key results (OKR) framework. It is designed to help you align your organisation’s strategic priorities with individual teams and track progress of each goal.

Viva Goals enables you to:  

• List your organisation’s goals, vision, and objectives.
• Visually monitor progress of each goal.
• List individual tasks and owners that will help achieve these goals.
• Celebrate team success.

Watch this video to learn more about Viva Goals. 

Viva Engage is a social community app within Microsoft Viva designed to help employees connect and socialise. Built on the foundation of Yammer, it is accessible within Microsoft Teams, at no extra cost for existing Microsoft 365 commercial customers. It is the newest addition to Microsoft Viva’s modules, generally available in August 2022. 

Viva Engage will help your people to:

• Have discussions with co-workers.
• Build and join communities.
• Get answers to questions.
• Share unique stories and interests.
• Find belongingness at work.

Watch this overview to learn more about Microsoft Viva Engage.

Other content you might be interested in:

• Microsoft Viva
• Modern Work Solutions
• Microsoft Viva Blogs

Short answer is no. Viva Engage is built on the foundation of Yammer and leverages its existing functionalities to provide a social community app within Microsoft Teams.