Last updated: 22nd May 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.
Jump to:
- What is Viva Engage
- Where to Access Viva Engage
- Key Features
- Viva Engage Use Cases
- How Much Does Viva Engage Cost
- How We Can Help
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.
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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
What You Can Do with Viva Engage
Viva Engage is packed with tools that help build connection, enable open communication, and support a more inclusive company culture. Below, we’ve broken down the key features that make it easier for employees to share, engage, and feel part of something bigger — whether they’re in the office, remote, or frontline.
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
Bringing Viva Engage to Life
Viva Engage isn’t just another communication tool — it’s designed to support real-world needs across different roles, teams, and industries. Here are some practical ways organisations are using Viva Engage to boost connection, collaboration, and culture at scale.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 licence (£9.90 per user/month) includes everything Viva Engage has to offer.
How We Can Help
Rolling out Viva Engage works best when it’s guided by clear goals, careful planning, and a solid understanding of how your organisation communicates. At Silicon Reef, we’ve helped a range of clients get started with Viva Engage by focusing on the practical steps that make adoption smoother and more effective.
We work with teams to shape governance that fits their culture and ways of working—providing clarity around things like roles, responsibilities, and moderation, without adding unnecessary complexity. We also help map out a phased approach to rollout, starting with a clear purpose and manageable scope, then building gradually with feedback and iteration.
Our approach is shaped by real experience, not just theory. We know where common pitfalls lie, and we know what helps communities gain traction. Whether you’re just exploring Viva Engage or ready to take the next step, we can support you with the structure and insight to make it work well in your organisation.
We shared some of the lessons we’ve learnt from previous Viva Engage projects, if you’d like to read more.
An Internal Communicator’s Guide to Microsoft Viva
Explore the Communications and Communities package and get to grips with Viva’s comms and engagement tools.
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.
Ready to See Viva Engage in Action?
Book a free Art of the Possible session to learn more about Viva Engage, and get a custom M365 roadmap for your organisation.
Additional FAQs
What is Microsoft Viva Engage, and how is it different from Yammer?
Viva Engage is Microsoft’s modern evolution of Yammer—still rooted in enterprise social networking, but now with a broader purpose. It builds on Yammer’s core tools like communities and conversations, and adds new layers focused on leadership engagement, knowledge sharing, and storytelling. It’s not just about social interaction—it’s about creating a more connected, informed workplace.
At Silicon Reef, we help clients go beyond the familiar social features to make the most of these deeper capabilities—whether it’s activating leadership storylines, using Viva Engage to surface knowledge across teams, or aligning campaigns with wider internal comms strategies. We focus on helping organisations unlock that next layer of value in a way that feels practical and aligned with how their people actually work.
How does Viva Engage improve employee engagement?
Viva Engage creates space for people to connect in ways that go beyond their day-to-day roles. Whether it’s sharing social interests, spotlighting team wins, or exchanging best practices, it helps break down silos and encourages conversations between colleagues who may otherwise never meet. For many of our clients, it’s become a key part of building a stronger sense of belonging—particularly in hybrid and distributed workplaces.
At Silicon Reef, we support organisations in designing these interactions to feel natural and inclusive, from setting up interest-based communities to promoting knowledge-sharing across departments. It’s about giving people simple, human ways to feel more connected at work.
Can Viva Engage support internal comms and leadership visibility?
Yes—Viva Engage is a powerful tool for helping leaders communicate more openly and consistently. Through storylines, announcements, and dedicated leadership spaces, it gives employees a clearer window into leadership priorities and personality.
We help clients make sure Viva Engage is set up to support this properly—like surfacing leaders in a way that makes them easy to find and follow, or using profile features to give employees better visibility of who’s who. It’s often these small tweaks that help build trust and make leadership feel more accessible day to day.
Do I need additional licences to use Viva Engage?
If you’re already using Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, you already have access to Viva Engage and can use the core features at no extra cost. That includes communities, conversations, storylines and more—plenty to get started with improving connection and communication across your business.
For organisations looking to go further, the Microsoft Viva Communications & Communities bundle offers a simple way to access more advanced tools—like Viva Engage Premium, Viva Amplify for campaign management, and Viva Connections Premium for richer homepage experiences—without needing to commit to the full Viva suite. We help clients understand what’s included, and what’s worth exploring based on their goals.
How does Viva Engage fit with Teams, SharePoint and other Microsoft tools?
Viva Engage is fully integrated with Microsoft Teams, which makes it easy for people to use without switching apps—whether they’re at their desk or out in the field. It’s particularly useful for frontline or deskless workers, thanks to its mobile-friendly experience via the Teams app.
When we help clients roll out Viva Engage, we often look at the full Microsoft 365 ecosystem to create a joined-up experience across Teams, Viva, and SharePoint. That way, it becomes a seamless part of your existing flow of work—not just another tool to manage.
Is Viva Engage secure, and how does it handle data privacy?
Yes—Viva Engage is built on the same enterprise-grade security and compliance standards as the rest of Microsoft 365. That means it benefits from Microsoft’s robust approach to identity, data protection, and governance. All content shared within Viva Engage is stored in your Microsoft 365 tenant and managed under your organisation’s existing compliance policies, including retention, eDiscovery and DLP (Data Loss Prevention).
Clients often ask us how Viva Engage fits into their broader data governance and compliance picture. At Silicon Reef, we help teams feel confident in how their data is handled—whether that’s understanding admin controls, aligning content with policies, or making sure sensitive conversations stay secure. It’s all about enabling connection and communication, without compromising on control.
