What is Microsoft Viva and how much

Microsoft Viva was announced in Feb 2021, as a new employee experience platform built on top of Microsoft SharePoint and Teams.

Employee Experience Platform (EXP) is a system of experiences that help organizations create a thriving culture with engaged employees and inspiring leaders.

Viva consists of four main parts (pillars):

Connections
Insights
Topics (part of what was Project Cortex)
Learning

Chris McNulty explains Microsoft Viva employee experience platform at Microsoft Ignite 2021 and
Naomi Moneypenny shows how to configure it in Microsoft 365 admin center:
Microsoft Viva Topics: Put knowledge to work with content and AI.

Viva Connections

Culture and Communications (Connections, Contribution, Alignment)…

Viva Connections provides a curated, personalized and company-branded experience that centralizes relevant news and conversations.

This is taking the best of the SharePoint content management system, the SharePoint website, and putting it in Microsoft Teams. The web is the best technology for achieving this task within desktop, and you can see it embedded right here in Microsoft Teams.

It helps everyone stay engaged and informed by delivering a curated employee destination that can be configured for specific roles and needs.

Long-term vision for Viva connections.

On desktop, it is connected to Microsoft Teams, always one click away. It is a composite experience pulling in a bunch of information, using SharePoint website as the best way of having composite experiences.

On mobile – three key screens, feed dashboard and resources. The feed allows quick access to corporate communications and the ability for end-users to interact with it. Dashboard is a way of completing corporate tasks, getting access to corporate actions and curated tools. Resources, that’s where the Internet, the list of communities, the list of places you can go, is organized in a way where people can quickly find what they’re looking for.

Incredibly important point is that Viva Connections leverages existing infrastructure and security investments in Microsoft 365. So ideas like you can target any audience or group using Azure Active Directory. You can customize your extend Dashboard using familiar paradigms, like Power Apps, SharePoint Framework, adaptive cards. You can deploy targeted navigation to accompany sites, communities, and resources by leveraging current information architecture.

Viva Insights

Viva Insights is a data-driven insights and actionable recommendations to improve productivity and wellbeing.

personal insights
manager insights
leader insights

The creation of Microsoft Viva Insights has been a confluence of the digital footprints that are captured in a Microsoft Graph, as well as the significant increase in the computing capacity of the graph. This data is a byproduct of the work that people do every day, and Microsoft 365 now contains one of the largest graphs of human activity and interactions at work ever created.

We want organizations to have this wealth of data at their fingertips to drive business outcomes because of their relationship with Microsoft 365. Microsoft Viva Insights applies intelligence to this data in the graph to help companies understand how work gets done and to predict the impact of those work patterns or the
outcomes that you leaders, managers, and individuals care about.

It’s part of an ecosystem you already know and trust. As a Microsoft 365 service, it sits in your trust boundaries with privacy safeguards and protections for individuals.

Viva Topics

Viva Topics is part of what was originally Project Cortex. Viva Topics uses AI to organize information into accessible knowledge, orchestrating those into topic pages, which are then delivered throughout the applications of Microsoft 365.

Viva Topics:

• Empower people with knowledge and expertise in the apps they use every day.
• Help people learn, develop new skills, and innovate faster while they work.
• Automatically connect, organize, and protect content across teams and systems.

Viva Learning

Microsoft Viva Learning works as Integrator – it creates a central learning hub in Microsoft Teams where people can discover, share, assign, and learn from content providers and company’s own content. It helps learning to be more engaging and seamlessly integrated into the places people already spend their time at work.

Viva learning is powered by MS graph and AI and organizes information into accessible knowledge, brings formal and informal learning structure directly into the flow of work.

Microsoft Viva Licensing

Ok, Viva is great, but how much?

Viva Topic: $5 per user per month (trial available for 25 users)
Viva Topic Requires Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, A3, E5, A5, Office 365 F3, E1, A1, E3, A3, E5, A5, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, or SharePoint K, Plan 1, or Plan 2 license to be eligible for Microsoft Viva Topics.

Viva Connections: free for existing Microsoft 365 and Office 365 customers.

Viva Insights: free (?) MS: “To have access to the Viva Insights app, you will need an Exchange Online license”
“Personal Insights”: included in your Office 365 subscription
“Manager insights”, “Leader Insights” and “Advanced tools and integrations”: Microsoft Workplace Analytics purchase required
Workplace Analytics: $6 per user per month ($2 per user per month for Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5)

Viva Learning: probably it will be free because you’ll have to pay for content providers subscription

Links to Viva Homepages at Microsoft:

Videos on Viva:

Introducing Microsoft Viva Learning (Microsoft Ignite 2021)
Introducing Microsoft Viva Connections (Adam Harmetz, Microsoft Ignite 2021)
Microsoft Viva Insights: Create a culture where people and business thrive (Kamal Janardhan, Microsoft Ignite 2021)