Rolling out Viva Engage in an organisation is always a significant shift. It’s a tool with immense potential to improve collaboration, build a sense of community, and open up conversations across teams. But with that potential comes a few hurdles—and I’ve seen them all.
I’ve worked with clients on their Viva Engage rollouts, and through trial and (a little) error, I’ve learned some valuable lessons. So rather than just giving you generic “top tips,” I want to share four real-world lessons I’ve picked up along the way.
1. Governance and Moderation: Set the Ground Rules Early
One of the biggest concerns organisations have when launching Viva Engage is governance—how do you maintain a space where employees feel safe sharing their thoughts while ensuring conversations remain aligned with company values?
From my experience, setting clear guidelines from the outset is crucial. Without structure, things can quickly get messy. Here’s what’s worked best for our clients:
A structured reporting process – Employees need an easy way to report inappropriate content. Having a defined process for handling flagged content ensures issues are dealt with consistently and fairly.
Clear severity levels – Not all flagged content is the same. Some issues require immediate removal, while others might just need a gentle nudge from HR. Having clear escalation paths prevents overreaction (or worse, underreaction).
A decision tree – Visualising your moderation workflow makes governance far easier to manage. I’ve built simple, step-by-step guides for my clients to help admins know exactly what action to take and when. Here’s an example:
Governance doesn’t have to mean strict censorship—you can still create a space where employees feel comfortable participating, while knowing there are safeguards in place.
2. The Power of a Phased Rollout
One of the biggest mistakes I see? Trying to launch everything at once.
Viva Engage has a wide range of features, from familiar ones like Communities—where teams can collaborate and share ideas—to newer additions like Leadership Corner, a dedicated space for leaders to connect directly with employees.
Rolling all of these out on day one can be overwhelming. For some organisations—especially larger ones—starting small and building momentum might be more effective. To help with a phased approach, we’ve helped our clients to:
Run a workshop – Begin with a workshop to gather key stakeholders, understand your organisation’s needs, and identify the most critical features for your first phase. This is a great opportunity to align your team on objectives and expectations.
Prioritise requirements – Work with your team to determine which features will bring the most immediate value to your organisation. Some features, like Communities, might be a natural starting point, while others, such as Leadership Corner or Storylines, could come later as your platform matures. With features like Storylines, I’ve seen greater adoption rolling this out in a controlled manner. For example, by enabling the feature for specific users, such as advocates, leaders and users with large audiences. This helps set the tone for what content should be shared via Storylines, sharing high quality, interesting content promotes engagement. Then, the feature can be rolled out org-wide with a clear understanding of the purpose and type of content the feature should be used for.
Develop a technical specification – Create a technical specification that outlines the settings required for each phase of the rollout. This ensures that IT, comms, and leadership teams are aligned on permissions, integrations, and configurations at every stage.
Here’s an example of the process most of our clients follow:
Discovery & Planning
Identifying stakeholders, leaders and advocates for the platform. Planning communities based on feedback, popular areas of other platforms such as the intranet. Planning the technical configuration of the platform, such as governance and compliance.
Initial Launch
Ensuring leaders, admins and experts were actively engaging with content including welcoming new members to communities, adding answers to unanswered questions and reacting to posts to enforce a positive sentiment of the platform, increasing adoption and users returning to the platform.
Future Phases
Planning integrating features, such as Storylines, as part of the wider communications strategy, identifying upcoming features on the roadmap that may be of value that could be adopted in the platform, expanding into Microsoft Teams in the case of Storylines.
This phased approach makes adoption smoother, governance more manageable, and gives employees time to get comfortable with the platform.
3. Know Your Milestones
Viva Engage rollouts can feel overwhelming—there are a lot of moving parts. But having a structured plan makes all the difference.
I’ve found that organisations with clear milestones tend to have the smoothest implementations. While every organisation’s journey is unique, here’s an example of the six steps we worked through with one particular client:
Identifying Leaders
Identify the stakeholders and leaders who will be passionate and active in Engage once the platform goes live to ensure they are onboard from the outset.
Requirements
Discuss your vision for the platform, plan the requirements for the solution and emphasise the purpose of each community, to give it the best opportunity to succeed.
Technical Specification
Work with your IT or M365 Team to reprovision the network from the US to EU for data residency assurance and map our processes for data retention and compliance.
Governance Strategy
Work with the Internal Communications Team to help map governance processes, such as processes for handling reported or flagged conversations to ensure guidelines were adhered to.
Champions Network
Emphasise engaging leaders, community experts and advocates to actively engage with the platform, adding thread starters, @mentioning others in questions and welcoming users to communities.
Continuous Engagement
Use community and network analytics to measure engagement and identify opportunities to grow communities and monitor participation and engagement.
Keeping these milestones in mind helps organisations stay on track and ensures no critical steps are overlooked.
4. Community Admins Make or Break Engagement
A common assumption I see is that Internal Comms teams alone will drive Viva Engage adoption. The reality? Without engaged community admins and leaders, things can quickly fizzle out.
Here’s why community admins are so crucial:
They keep conversations active – A well-trained admin knows how to encourage discussions, tag relevant employees, and ensure content stays fresh.
They moderate effectively – Without clear ownership, communities can become either ghost towns or the Wild West. A trained admin strikes the right balance.
They track engagement and adapt accordingly – Viva Engage provides powerful analytics, allowing admins to monitor engagement trends, see which discussions are resonating, and identify areas that need more attention. By using this data, they can make informed decisions—adjusting content strategies, encouraging participation in quieter groups, and ensuring the platform remains valuable for employees.
And leaders? Their role is just as important. Employees follow the example set by leadership—when leaders actively engage, employees are far more likely to do the same. Training leaders on how to use Viva Engage effectively—whether that’s posting updates, responding to discussions, or sharing their own insights—sets the tone for the entire organisation.
From my experience, structured training (through webinars or live sessions) is the best way to ensure admins and leaders feel confident in their roles.
Final Thoughts
Every Viva Engage rollout is different, but these four lessons—clear governance, a phased approach, structured milestones, and engaged admins—are the foundation of every successful implementation I’ve seen.
If you’re planning your own rollout, take the time to put these lessons into practice. It’ll save you a lot of headaches and set you up for long-term success.
And if you need support? We’re always here to help.
An Internal Communicator’s Guide to Microsoft Viva
For a more in-depth look at Viva Engage, Viva Connections, Viva Amplify and Viva Goals, including key features and real life use-cases, download our guide to Microsoft Viva especially for internal communicators.
