Microsoft has launched Viva, promoted as a new platform for knowledge discovery that integrates with the productivity and collaboration capabilities in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams.

“We have participated in the largest at-scale remote work experiment the world has seen, and it has had a dramatic impact on the employee experience,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft.

“Every organization will require a unified employee experience from onboarding and collaboration to continuous learning and growth. Viva brings together everything an employee needs to be successful, from day one, in a single, integrated experience directly in Teams.”

The launch includes an initial set of modules that include:

Viva Connections - where employees can access internal communications and company resources such as policies and benefits and participate in communities such as employee resource groups, all from a single customizable app in Microsoft Teams. The Connections app for Teams will be available on desktop in public preview the first half of 2021 with a mobile app coming later this year.

Viva Insights - gives individuals, managers and leaders personalized and actionable. Personal experiences and insights, visible only to the employee, help individuals protect time for regular breaks, focused work and learning. Managers and leaders can see trends at team and organization level, as well as recommendations to better balance productivity and wellbeing.

Viva Learning - aggregates all the learning resources available to an organization in one place, including content from LinkedIn Learning; Microsoft Learn; third-party providers including Skillsoft, Coursera, Pluralsight and edX; as well as an organization’s own content library.

Viva Topics - Using AI over a customer’s Microsoft 365 data, and with the ability to integrate knowledge from a variety of third-party services such as ServiceNow and Salesforce, Viva Topics automatically surfaces topic cards within conversations and documents across Microsoft 365 and Teams. Clicking on a card opens a topic page with related documents, conversations, videos and people. Viva Topics is now generally available as an add-on to Microsoft 365 commercial plans.

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