Increase your knowledge culture with Microsoft Viva

We live in the information age. The problem is that with evermore information being continually produced, finding the specific content you need becomes ever more challenging. According to one recent survey, 19% of employees struggle to find the information they need in their enterprise content management systems. And 16% struggle to find an internal subject matter expert in a reasonable time frame.

Viva Topics is Microsoft’s innovative new approach to help organizations deal with this knowledge management headache. Introduced in early February and already available, Viva Topics uses artificial Intelligence and the Microsoft Graph to help improve how knowledge is found.

Viva Topics is one of the four modules in the Microsoft Viva employee experience platform. It’s an offshoot from the Project Cortex initiative which aims to help organizations build an easily accessible (in Microsoft 365 apps) knowledge network based on information stored in SharePoint Online. SharePoint Syntex is the other offshoot of the Cortex initiative, but it’s not part of Microsoft Viva.

What is Microsoft Viva Topics?
Viva Topics applies next generation thinking to knowledge management. In this model, a company’s knowledge is organized into topic cards. Whenever an employee sees an acronym, a project or a specific term mentioned that they are not familiar, they can click on it and see a Topic Card which gives an overview of the subject. Viva Topic cards contain a description of the topic itself, as well as related documents and subject matter experts.

You might find it useful to think of Viva Topics as like an organisational Wikipedia. Whenever a user visits a page and sees a term they are not familiar with, they can hover over it to see a Topic Card which provides more information. If they want to learn more, they can open up the Topic and access additional resources.
Viva Topics uses a combination of your existing knowledge management structure and Artificial Intelligence to create the Topic Cards. Over time Viva Topics will begin to surface information based on what it believes your users need to know. This means that information will never be more than one click away.
Topics can be accessed throughout the Microsoft 365 interface. You will notice them in Microsoft Teams, Outlook, SharePoint and other apps you use.

Makes knowledge contextual
Because users can click on terms that they don't understand and see a Topic Card, the knowledge will be delivered contextually, at the moment of need. Just like contextual microlearning, this way of delivering information means users will retain information more effectively. It also means they’re less likely to simply ‘guess’ what a term means. Instead, they can verify their understanding of concepts immediately then get on with whatever they were doing before.

You don't have to go somewhere to find knowledge
Traditional knowledge management systems require employees to visit an organizational knowledge page and seek out the terms or concepts they are interested in. This breaks up the flow of work, and means they might get distracted. They also spend more time looking for the information. Viva Topics brings that knowledge directly to the user, thereby saving time.

Find subject matter experts faster
In a similar way, Topic Cards will make it much easier for people to find subject matter experts who can provide extra information on one specific field or another. Again, this should save users time and avoid the risk of ‘reinventing the wheel’.
Prometix as a Microsoft Gold certified partner and certified O365 consultants (Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne & Perth), we have extensive experience in delivering Microsoft 365 based solutions. If you need more information or a demo on Microsoft Viva platform then please contact us from enquiries@prometix.com.au.