Last updated: 25th February 2025
Viva Engage is part of the Microsoft Viva employee experience platform, alongside apps like Viva Connections, Viva Goals and Viva Amplify.
We dive into what Viva Engage is, how to access it, key features, and how much it costs.
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What is Viva Engage?
Viva Engage is Microsoft Viva’s enterprise social network—like social media for your employees, but with an extra focus on collaboration and productivity.
Microsoft describes it as a hub where employees can connect with leaders, co-workers, and communities. It enables knowledge sharing, open dialogue, and two-way communication, keeping everyone in the loop with company updates.
Blending work and play, Viva Engage lets employees discuss strategy with leadership whilst bonding over shared interests with colleagues—whether it’s cats, baking, or cheesy rom-coms.
For internal communicators, it’s the most familiar app in the Viva platform, replacing Yammer in 2023. While retaining Yammer’s core features, it introduces enhanced functionality for a better employee experience.
On Demand: Demystifying Microsoft Viva
Catch up on our on-demand webinar. Focusing only on the apps that IC need to know: Connections, Engage, Amplify and Goals.
Where to Find Viva Engage
You can access Viva Engage directly in Microsoft Teams. Just click ‘Apps’ in the left sidebar, search for Viva Engage, and pin it for quick access.
It’s a great tool for engaging frontline and deskless workers, as anyone with Teams can access it on desktop or mobile. But mobile users don’t have to go through Teams—there’s also a dedicated Viva Engage app for iOS and Android.
Prefer a browser? Visit your microsoft365.com homepage and find Viva Engage in the ‘Apps’ section.
You can also integrate Viva Engage into SharePoint using the Conversations or Highlights web parts, seamlessly embedding it into your digital workplace. This keeps employees engaged without switching apps and creates a built-in space for interactive, two-way communication.
By making Viva Engage available across Teams, mobile, browser, and SharePoint, employees can engage wherever they work best. Some prefer real-time conversations in Teams, while others catch up via SharePoint—ensuring maximum reach and engagement.
Viva Engage Key Features
Communities
Communities are a core feature of Viva Engage, bringing employees together around work and social topics. Each community has its own conversations, files, and events, allowing employees to:
✅ Start discussions
✅ Ask questions
✅ Send praise
✅ Run polls
✅ Share articles
Communities go beyond work-related projects, creating spaces for shared interests. At Silicon Reef, examples we use include:
- Professional topics like AI, User Experience, and Employee Experience—helping employees explore new interests.
- Wellbeing groups for sharing tips, resources, and fun challenges like step competitions.
- Social communities for pets, daily jokes, and book clubs.
Each community automatically gets a SharePoint site, document library, OneNote notebook, and Planner plan—so it’s important to define who can create and manage them.
Communities can be public or private. Public groups are open to all employees, while admins approve access to private communities.
By making it easy to connect, learn, and engage, Viva Engage communities help build a more connected and interactive workplace.
Storylines & Stories
Storylines and Stories bring familiar social media features to Viva Engage, similar to Instagram and Facebook.
- Stories: Quick, off-the-cuff videos and pictures, perfect for day-in-the-life moments and real-time updates.
- Storylines: A personal newsfeed where posts outside of communities appear on your profile. You can follow colleagues’ storylines to stay updated.
Anyone can create Stories and Storylines, making it easier to connect beyond immediate teams.
For internal comms, these features help boost leadership visibility and engagement. Leaders can even assign delegates to post on their behalf, allowing comms teams to share content seamlessly.
Still using Meta Workplace?
With Meta Workplace soon going read-only, now is the time to explore alternatives. Microsoft Viva Engage could be the ideal solution for your organisation. Speak with our experts to discover how it can support your business.
Leadership Corner
Leadership Corner connects employees with leaders across the business.
- Leadership Directory: Employees can explore leader profiles, starting with those linked to their role—helpful for new starters getting to know senior teams.
- Follow Leaders: Stay updated with posts and announcements from key leaders.
- Ask Me Anything (AMA) Events: Interactive Q&A sessions where employees can engage directly with leadership.
AMA events can be open or moderated, with controls over who can ask, answer, and whether anonymous questions are allowed.
By making leadership more accessible and visible, Leadership Corner strengthens communication across the business.
Answers in Viva
Answers in Viva makes knowledge sharing easy by connecting employees with experts and past discussions.
- Ask & Answer: Employees can ask questions, get answers, and tap into company-wide expertise.
- AI-Powered Search: Uses natural language processing to find similar past questions and pull relevant answers from across Microsoft 365.
- Topic Grouping: Organises related questions, making it easier to find information. Employees can also follow topics of interest.
- Gamification: Employees earn badges for sharing knowledge and answering questions.
Campaigns
Campaigns give employees a voice in company initiatives, making it easy to participate and share ideas.
Each campaign has a dedicated landing page and hashtag. Hashtags with a check mark have been verified by the organisation.
There are two types of campaign:
- Official Campaigns – Created by admins and open to everyone.
- Community Campaigns – Exclusive to specific communities.
Employees join by adding the campaign hashtag to their post, automatically grouping it on the campaign page for easy participation.
Campaigns help internal comms teams drive engagement, making company initiatives more interactive and inclusive.
Analytics
Viva Engage offers powerful analytics to help internal communicators track how key messages are received.
- Engagement Analytics: Get insights on reach, reactions, and top conversations to measure employee interaction.
- Advanced Analytics: Dive deeper with sentiment analysis and trending themes, helping you understand workplace sentiment and emerging topics.
These insights make it easier to refine communication strategies, ensuring messages resonate and drive engagement.
Copilot
Copilot in Viva Engage is your AI-powered assistant, helping you create more engaging posts and articles with ease. It suggests ways to refine your messaging, making sure your content lands well with your audience. Beyond writing support, Copilot provides insights on engagement and sentiment, helping you shape internal comms that truly resonate.
Viva Engage Use Cases
1. Connect Global Teams
For large organisations, silos can make it hard for employees to feel connected. Viva Engage Communities help bridge the gap, building relationships around both social and professional interests, no matter where employees are based.
Some great community ideas include:
- Book Clubs – Connect over favorite reads
- Foodie Groups – Swap recipes and restaurant tips
- Pet Lovers – Because who doesn’t love a cute dog pic?
- AI Champions – A space for early adopters to share how they’re using AI in their daily work
- Accessibility Network – Support an inclusive workplace for all
- Innovation Hub – Collaborate on new ideas and solutions
The key? Let communities grow naturally. Forced groups with no engagement won’t stick. But when done right, Viva Engage helps employees build real connections beyond job titles—boosting engagement, productivity, and workplace happiness.
2. Leadership Q&As
Leadership Corner’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) feature makes leadership more accessible and approachable. These text-based Q&A sessions allow leaders to engage with employees directly—without the pressure of live video events.
✅ Employees can drop in and out, catching up between meetings or during a coffee break.
✅ Upvoting helps comms teams spot trends and address common concerns.
✅ Anonymous questions create a safe space for open dialogue.
With the right setup, AMAs drive transparency, trust, and engagement, making leadership more visible and communication more meaningful.
3. Recognising & Celebrating Employees
Recognition fuels engagement. Viva Engage makes it easy to highlight achievements, big or small.
- Shout-outs & Praise – Celebrate wins and milestones with the Praise feature.
- Work Anniversaries & Birthdays – Create a culture of appreciation.
- Employee Spotlights – Showcase talent and success stories across the business.
4. Crowdsourcing Ideas & Feedback
Want to spark innovation and problem-solving? Viva Engage provides a space for employees to share ideas, vote on suggestions, and contribute to company decisions.
- Innovation Challenges – Tap into employee creativity for new products or processes.
- Polls & Surveys – Get quick feedback on initiatives and workplace improvements.
- Problem-Solving Communities – Create groups where teams can troubleshoot challenges together.
5. Internal Campaigns & Advocacy
Use Viva Engage Campaigns to mobilise employees around key initiatives.
- Sustainability Drives – Encourage eco-friendly habits with challenges and updates.
- Tech Adoption Campaigns – Help employees get the most out of new tools and platforms.
- Employer Brand Advocacy – Empower employees to share company news and culture externally.
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How Much Does Viva Engage Cost?
If your organisation already uses Microsoft 365 Enterprise (including Teams and SharePoint), you get Viva Engage’s Communities and Conversations features at no extra cost.
For access to premium features like Leadership Corner, Answers, and Campaigns, you’ll need a Viva Employee Communications & Communities licence (£1.64 per user/month). This also includes Viva Connections and Viva Amplify—ideal for internal comms teams wanting advanced tools without the full suite.
For organisations looking for the complete Viva experience, the Microsoft Viva Suite license (£9.90 per user/month) includes everything Viva Engage has to offer.
We’ve included a quick feature breakdown below to help you decide which option is right for you.
Available to all Microsoft 365 Customers
(E1, E3, E5, F1 or F3 licence)
- Communities – public, private, official, restricted
- Conversations – discussions, questions, praise, polls
- Reactions
- Basic Communicator Tools – announcements, delegates, featured community posts, pinned posts
- Multi-App Reach – across Outlook, Teams, Viva Connections, SharePoint and custom apps
- Storylines
- Viva Engage App – on web and mobile, integrated with Teams and Outlook
- Video & Images
- Events – live events in communities, and Q&A in Teams meetings and town halls
- Basic Analytics – community and community post analytics
- Reporting – M365 admin reports
- Conversation guidance – keyword monitoring, report conversation, close/delete thread
- Compliance – eDiscovery, data retention, information barriers, continuous access evaluation, disable private messages
- Microsoft Purview integration – Communication Compliance, advanced eDiscovery
Requires Additional Licence
(Viva Suite or Communications & Communities)
- Leadership Communications – identify leaders and audiences, storyline announcements, leadership corner
- Premium Communicator Tools – storyline delegates, Corporate Communicator role, featured storyline posts, scheduled posts
- Articles – inline images and video, advanced formatting, immersive view
- Ask Me Anything (AMA) Events
- Social Campaigns
- Premium Storyling Functionality – featured storyline posts, cover photos, delegation
- Multi-Tenant Support
- Premium Analytics – sentiment and theme analysis, personal, leader, audience, network, campaign, AMA, conversation and answer analytics
- Answers in Viva -answers in communities, Microsoft 365 search integration
- Viva Amplify Integration
- Copilot in Viva Engage
Ready to See Viva Engage in Action?
Unlock the full potential of Viva Engage with our Art of the Possible consultation. Whether you’re looking to enhance knowledge sharing, boost employee engagement, or drive cultural transformation, we’ll help you explore what’s possible.
Viva Engage Video Library
Additional FAQs
How does Viva Engage integrate with other Microsoft 365 tools?
Viva Engage seamlessly integrates with other Microsoft 365 tools like Teams, SharePoint, and Outlook. This integration allows for a unified experience where employees can access Viva Engage features directly within the tools they already use daily, enhancing productivity and collaboration.
In the future, Microsoft is planning even more integration between Viva Engage and Teams to make it even easy to post and interact straight from chats.
Can Viva Engage be used for employee recognition and rewards?
Yes, Viva Engage can be used to recognise and reward employees. Features like shout-outs, badges, and recognition posts can be used to celebrate achievements and milestones, creating a positive and motivating work environment.
It’s worth noting that at present, the Praise functions in Viva Engage and Teams/Viva Insights are not linked. Agree within your organisation whether colleague recognition should be sent via Viva Engage, or through Teams/Viva Insights to make sure all recognition comes through one channel.
How does Viva Engage handle data privacy and security?
Viva Engage adheres to Microsoft’s stringent data privacy and security standards. Microsoft 365 security capabilities, like role-based access and identity management, also apply to Viva Engage. It includes features like data encryption, compliance with GDPR, and robust access controls to ensure that all user data is protected and secure.
How can Viva Engage support knowledge sharing within my organisation?
Viva Engage aids knowledge sharing by providing a platform where employees can post questions, share insights, and contribute to discussions. This collective knowledge base helps employees learn from each other, find solutions to common problems, and stay informed about best practices and industry trends.
In particular, the AI-supported ‘Answers in Viva’ feature can held employees self-serve, and share and find knowledge from across the business.
It’s a great tool for breaking down departmental knowledge silos.
How can Viva Engage help in onboarding new employees?
Viva Engage can significantly enhance the onboarding process by providing new employees with access to community groups, resources, and direct communication with colleagues and leaders. This helps new hires integrate quickly, understand company culture, and feel connected from day one.
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.
Silicon Reef are people-first Microsoft 365 experts. We help organisations make the most of M365 to elevate the employee experience. Get in touch to learn how we can help with Viva Suite, including Engage, or other Microsoft tools like SharePoint or Power Platform.
