Saturday, February 13, 2021

Microsoft Viva

I think everyone was surprised by the recent announcement of the new Viva capability.  The announcements state “Today we are announcing Microsoft Viva, the first Employee Experience Platform (EXP) built for the digital era. Viva brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights into an integrated employee experience that builds on Microsoft Teams to empower people to be their best, from anywhere.”

When I started to dig into what Viva really is, in Office 365 terms I was super impressed with the vision.  When Microsoft Teams went to market a few years ago, it was solution that brought together many users experiences inside of Office 365.  Previously SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Skype for Business Online were horizonal solutions with level of integration, yet Microsoft Teams brought them together into a single immersive user experience.  I see the same thing with Viva.

Viva is bringing together Microsoft Workplace Analytics and Microsoft MyAnalytics into an immersive experience within Microsoft Teams.  Viva Insights is the next revolution of these capabilities which I would say are being highly under utilized by customers and users.  This brings these capabilities to the forefront.

Additionally solutions like Microsoft AI is being used to create a solution called Viva Topics which will help users share knowledge and connect people with each other in their everyday jobs.

All of these capabilities will be critical in supporting workforces that are transitioning out of offices and into remote work scenarios.  I see tons of potential, and cannot wait to watch this evolve.

References:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-viva/overview

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2021/02/04/microsoft-viva-empowering-every-employee-for-the-new-digital-age/

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/introducing-microsoft-viva-the-employee-experience-platform-in/ba-p/2111481