Social tools are a great way to collaborate, especially in a work environment. You can get your team up to speed on projects, share progress, encourage discussion, and ensure everyone’s on the same page.

Microsoft’s version of this is Yammer, a social tool for work. They recently announced Viva Engage, which replaces the Yammer Communities App in Teams. But it has left people confused. Is Viva Engage replacing Yammer? And with some organisations still not seeing the value of Yammer, will Viva Engage have a place? Let’s take a look.

 

What is Yammer?

For those who don’t know, Yammer is a social media platform that allows employees to communicate, collaborate and share information. It’s an internal communications tool that helps companies keep employees up-to-date on company activities.

Yammer can be accessed on a browser and has the same feel as a forum where you can scroll to see new updates from colleagues. My organisation uses Yammer for praise, customer feedback, new exam updates and general social events. We have banned company-wide emails and replaced them with Yammer.

 

 

Yammer has a feature called Communities. Yammer communities are groups of people who come together around a specific topic. They can be open to everyone (public) or invite-only (private). The content in these communities is typically generated by the members of the community itself, not Yammer itself.

Yammer can be added to the Teams taskbar as an app called “Communities”, so you can receive Yammer announcements via Teams notifications and access the feed and communities through Teams.

 

What is Viva Engage?

Viva Engage was announced as the latest addition to Microsoft Viva in July this year (2022). Viva Engage is an exciting new tool that helps you and your team stay connected and engaged at work. It’s available via Microsoft Teams and Outlook as part of the Microsoft 365 software suite, so it’s easy to add to your workflow.

In addition to having all the features you’d expect of a social media platform like news feeds, profiles, and the ability to post images and videos, Viva Engage also has storylines and stories that let users connect with colleagues in unique ways.

 

 

With stories, you can share your thoughts on current events or personal interests in an open-ended format that allows anyone on Viva Engage to comment or react as they see fit. These conversations are not limited to single posts; instead, they form a continuous thread of thought that can be viewed by anyone who follows your profile page or searches for your name in the search bar at the top of any page within Viva Engage.

Viva Engage is available to customers licensed with Yammer and is included in most Office 365 plans.

 

Is Yammer replacing Viva Engage?

Viva Engage will replace Yammer in Teams, but it lives on the web and native mobile apps. This means you can continue using Yammer Communities in Teams—and now you’ll have access to new features that make it easier to connect with others and find a sense of connection at work.

Can I use both?

Viva Engage is not replacing Yammer, so yes, you can use both. You can access Viva Engage through Teams and use the web version of Yammer and the mobile app to view and access the same feed.

In the past, Microsoft designed their technology to make employees as productive as possible. Microsoft tools like Teams, SharePoint and Office are built with great productivity features, which gets employees doing more in less time. 

Recently Microsoft has shifted gear slightly by investing in technology that focuses more on employee wellbeing. The pandemic helped fast-track this by showing how people work better when they are happier and have a better work/life balance. 

One of the significant products that Microsoft has released is Microsoft Viva, an employee experience platform. Here are four reasons why you should care about Viva. 

1. Happier employees are more productive

Several research studies have established the connection between employee happiness, employee engagement, and employee performance.

Viva helps create a healthy work environment, builds a sense of workplace community, and helps employees improve their work/life balance. These factors are significant to ensure employees feel valued, engaged and happy.

2. Retain your best people

Replacing employees is expensive. Advertising your company to future candidates, interviewing, onboarding, and training take many hours. This creates a high cost for your organization. 

Microsoft designed elements of Viva to improve employee wellbeing, ensuring your employees are engaged and happy, reducing the loss of a good person, knowledge and skills they take with them. 

3. Microsoft is investing in employee experience

Microsoft released Microsoft Viva in 2021 with four modules. Already in the last few months, they have added two more modules to Viva and a Dynamics integration product. Microsoft\’s investment in Viva should show just how important they think it is and how technology is shifting towards people. Keeping up with the changes in technology means keeping up with the changes in culture. 

4. Some of Viva already comes with Office 365

Many elements of Viva come with Office 365 licensing, so chances are you already have the technology in place. Viva Connections, Viva Engage and some features of Viva Learning and Insights come with Office 365, so you can use the technology you are already paying for.

Viva Topics is one of the five modules in Microsoft Viva, which Microsoft released in 2021. It acts as a Wikipedia for business by presenting business users with a Topic card when they see a word or acronym they don’t recognise. Topic cards can be found in SharePoint online and will soon be available in Teams and Outlook.

 

 

Topic cards will provide information about the Topic, including files and sites related, a description, and people who know about the Topic and related Topics. Topics help employees understand what it means and who is involved. A good use case for Topics is an organisation that runs many projects, as your project names can be Topics. Law firms may also find use with legal terms and cases as Topics.

 

How are Topics created?

Topics are created by a mixture of Microsoft’s AI and people in your organisation who have the “knowledge manager” role. AI will create Topics as a first draft, and employees can choose to add to them or remove them if they are irrelevant.

You can assign a few roles to help manage Topics in your organisation. Those roles are:

• Manage topics: Can confirm and reject topics, typically knowledge managers.
• Create & edit topics: Can edit and create new topics.
• Topic viewers: See information on topic pages, search results and topics in SharePoint pages.

This helps ensure Topics are up-to-date as employees are working day-to-day.

 

Topic Centre

Knowledge Managers can manage Topics in the Topic Centre, a SharePoint site where users can view, manage and create topics. Each user will have a bespoke view of suggested topics relevant to them based on what they do in Microsoft 365.

 

 

From here, knowledge managers can see if a Topic has impressions and choose to approve or remove Topics that the AI has suggested.

The Topic Centre is where employees can view the full details of the Topic and even update it as they go.

 

 

Topics will become available in Teams chat, channel messages, and Outlook emails later in 2022. This means I can find the correct information wherever I am working at the right time.

 

How do I get Viva Topics?

You can purchase a Viva Suite license that includes all of the premium Viva features across Insights, Learning, Topics and Goals if you want to use all of Microsoft Viva. Viva Topics is an additional license cost of £3.00 per user/month. Each user will need a license if they want to view Topics.