Here at Pait Group, we've been excited about using Microsoft Viva with our clients to breathe new life into their intranets. With Viva, organizations can create a more personalized and engaging employee experience, foster a more connected and collaborative workplace culture, and use this information to drive better decision making. 
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For the uninitiated, Microsoft Viva is Microsoft’s new employee experience platform that is built into your Microsoft 365 tenant. The platform consists of several modules, each designed to address a specific aspect of the employee experience. Viva is divided into four main components: Viva Connections, Viva Engage, Viva Learning, and Viva Insights. Each of these tools serves a specific purpose and is designed to work seamlessly with the others to create a holistic experience.
We also understand that the setup process for Viva can be a bit daunting. That's why we've put together a series of free webinars on each of the Viva modules to assist with the setup and configuration of the components. We want to make sure our clients have all the support they need to get the most out of this powerful suite of tools.
If you aren’t familiar with Microsoft Viva, let’s take a closer look at the four main modules.
We’ll start with Viva Connections. This tool is all about creating a personalized and engaging employee experience. Viva Connections allows organizations to create a central hub for all their internal communications, providing a one-stop-shop for employees to access important company news, updates, and resources. You’ve spent a lot of time designing a nice-looking homepage – now you can bring that homepage right into Microsoft Teams so you can switch between your chats and the intranet without switching apps. You can even build out a card-driven dashboard to highlight important links, news, and other employee-centric resources scoped to the currently logged in user. This module is free and is included with your Microsoft 365 subscription.
Next up is Viva Engage. As the name suggests, this tool is all about employee engagement. Viva Engage is actually the new name for Yammer, the social app that helps organizations to foster a more connected and collaborative workplace culture by providing tools and resources for employee recognition, feedback, and communication. With Viva Engage, employees can give and receive recognition, provide feedback on their work, and connect with colleagues in meaningful ways. It’s essentially your company’s social platform, built right into Microsoft 365. This module is also free and included with Microsoft 365, however there is also a paid add-on that opens up a few extra features.
Moving on to Viva Learning, this tool is all about professional development and upskilling. Viva Learning provides a central hub for employees to access training and development resources, both internally and externally. Organizations can curate their own content and make it available to employees, as well as connect to third-party providers to offer a wide range of learning opportunities. With Viva Learning, employees can take control of their own learning and develop new skills to advance their careers. One of the biggest draws of Viva Learning is being able to add your own content as a learning source. Full disclosure – the setup process for this is lengthy and complicated, but when it works, it is a great way to provide your own organization’s content in a learning hub directly in Teams. A basic, free version is included with your Microsoft 365 license, but a paid version also allows you to add additional 3rd party content sources if your company has subscriptions to those.
Finally, we have Viva Insights. This tool is all about using data to drive better decision-making, both for the individual and organization. Viva Insights provides workers with insights into their daily work habits, helping them focus on their wellbeing and productivity. Using Insights, you can schedule focus time, schedule a wrap-up of your day, plan for quiet time and get organized for the next day. Insights can even help you find patterns within your workday and helps you optimize your day to be even more productive and focused, allowing you to get more done. In addition, Insights can provide organizations with a wealth of data about their workforce, including trends in communication, collaboration, and productivity. With Viva Insights, organizations can identify areas for improvement, track progress over time, and make data-driven decisions about how to optimize their workforce.
You may be wondering how much Viva will cost you to implement. The base suite of Viva products (Connections, Engage, Insights, and Learning) are all included with your Microsoft 365 subscription. Getting started with Viva costs you nothing in terms of extra licensing. Keep in mind that there isn’t a single button to click to turn on and configure all the Viva bits and pieces in your tenant. Each module requires at least some degree of configuration, with Connections and Learning requiring the most work to get up and running. In addition, you’ll want to make sure you invest some time in planning out how you’ll be utilizing Viva to get the most out of this powerful set of tools. If you decide to bring in a partner to help you with the setup and configuration of Viva (like Pait Group!), you’ll want to factor in that into your budget as well.
As for the paid versions, most Viva apps have an option to purchase an individual premium add-on. At the time of this writing (April 2023), these individual premium add-ons are $4.00 per licensed user/per month (billed annually). If you decide you want more than one Viva app, consider upgrading to the full premium Viva Suite – it is $9.00 per licensed user/per month (also billed annually). These rates are scheduled to increase in July 2023 so if you’re interested in taking advantage of this discount, act fast. The Viva Suite gives you the premium paid versions of all the Viva apps and unlocks all the features the “free” versions do not come with.
Microsoft Viva is an exciting suite of tools to allow organizations to engage with their workforce through their digital workspaces. By providing a more personalized and connected experience, Viva can help organizations to foster a more engaged and productive workforce. With Viva Connections, Viva Engage, Viva Learning, and Viva Insights, there's something for every organization looking to utilize their intranet to take their employee experience to the next level.
If you’d like more information on setting up Microsoft Viva for your organization, Pait Group’s experts are happy to help. Get in touch with us today and we can discuss what Viva can do for your organization.