Leslie Anjan's blog

It was in February 2021 Microsoft Viva was announced. Since it is a new platform and there are so many questions around this technology. I thought this will be an opportunity to let my customers and network know what this really is and go through the key components. Microsoft positions Viva as an Employee Experience Platform. This workplace analytics (Viva) is described as bringing together tools for employee communications, wellbeing, learning and knowledge discovery into one solution. Microsoft Viva is comprises of four modules: Viva Connections  – a combination of company-branded SharePoint portal (aka intranet) in a Teams app with Yammer Communities and stream video integration. Viva Insights  – Personal and Organisational productivity reporting, building on Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics but also pulling insights from third-party platforms like HR applications, Network access, and SAP. Viva Topics  – Using AI (formally kno...

What is Microsoft Viva? Microsoft describes  Microsoft Viva as " the first employee experience platform to bring tools for employee engagement, learning, wellbeing and knowledge discovery, directly into the flow of people’s work. Viva is designed to help employees learn, grow and thrive, with new experiences that integrate with the productivity and collaboration capabilities in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams. " Microsoft Viva builds on the power of Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 to unify the employee experience across four key areas — Engagement, Wellbeing, Learning and Knowledge — in an integrated experience that empowers people to be their best.  4 Main Pillars + Ally.io (coming soon) Pillar 1: Microsoft Viva Connections Viva Connections is a framework through which you can deliver your intranet within Microsoft Teams. Effectively this is the "Home App" in Teams. Employees can access internal communications and company resources like policies and benefits an...

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. SharePoi...

Microsoft Viva Insights is one of the four components that Microsoft released as part of the Microsoft Viva platform. Workers are not machines. This might seem an obvious statement, yet for a long-time business technology has largely ignored this fact. Whether it’s your email, CRM or even a spreadsheet, IT tools are designed with an exclusive focus on productivity. They’re about helping people do work as efficiently as possible. Of course, helping people do tasks productively is a good thing. But the problem is that most business IT platforms allow you to keep on working as long as you possibly can. However, the fact is that human beings need to stop and sleep sometimes! Especially in the era of remote working where it is easier than ever for people to stay connected to their enterprise productivity platforms, there is a real risk of people burning out. Viva Insights is therefore designed to provide both individuals and organizations with an idea of how people are doing at work. ...

In February, Microsoft announced a new employee experience platform called Viva. Viva is experienced through Microsoft Teams and other 365 apps. Viva is broken down into four modules. In this insight, we are looking at Viva Connections. What is Viva Connections? Viva connections is one of the module of Viva described by Microsoft as ‘your gateway to a modern employee experience’. It’s designed to help people connect, focus and learn through flexible working. Bringing together relevant news, conversations and resources from your company. Communication Communicating with employees, particularly when remote working, can be a challenge. Viva supports this with a personalised feed in which employees can explore and contribute to company news updates. You can publish content from apps such as Yammer, SharePoint and Stream direct to employee feeds. A boost feature allows you to pin a news item to the top of the feed. The item will leave the top of the feed based on rules you set, fo...