Microsoft Viva Connections - What is pricing? Licensing? Cost? Setup?

What is Microsoft Viva Connections?

Viva Connections is a framework through which you can deliver your intranet. Employees can access internal communications and company resources like policies and benefits and participate in communities like employee resource groups, all from a single customisable app in Microsoft Teams.

Today more and more employees are using Microsoft Teams as their primary place to communicate and collaborate with colleagues. Viva Connections is a way of delivering content even if employees don't log into SharePoint daily.

Discover news and conversations

Keep everyone informed about what’s happening across the organization with an individually tailored feed that includes contributions from your employees. Hone your delivery with powerful targeting and scheduling capabilities.

Curate a centralized destination

Streamline visibility into your company’s critical employee resources through the personalized dashboard. Quick, one-touch access to information and actions allows employees to promptly return to their jobs.

Get up and running fast

Use your existing infrastructure to save time and money—backed by world-class security from Microsoft.

Why should you use Viva Connections?

Get the most from your SharePoint intranet

If people are spending more time in Teams, it might mean they could miss important company news or updates. By bringing the content from your SharePoint intranet into Viva Connections, you create a rich, personalized employee experience.

Employee Engagement

By bringing company communications and news into Teams, Microsoft is aiming to address engagement challenges.

More mobile friendly

No matter what your role is in the company - a frontline worker or an information worker - Microsoft Viva Connections offers a streamlined experience for tackling important tasks from your mobile.

Does Viva Connections replace a SharePoint intranet?

No. For Microsoft Viva Connections to work well, you're still going to need a SharePoint intranet with appropriate sites and good information management.

We have recently expanded the Atlas delivery experience through Viva Connections and will enrich this further through the Viva Connections dashboard.

FAQs

What is Viva Connections pricing?

There is no additional cost for Viva Connections. The application does not require additional premium licenses. However, it does require SharePoint Online licenses. Therefore if a user has access to SharePoint, Viva Connections will be accessible at no additional cost.

Licensing guide for Viva Connections?

Viva Connections is available to all Microsoft 365 enterprise plans (E3, E5) as well as frontline worker plans (F1,F3) without requiring a separate license. Therefore it is free with relevant licensing plans.

Compare Microsoft licensing plans.

When is Viva Connections available?

The Viva Connections Teams app was released in April 2021 for general availability worldwide.

How can I setup Viva Connections?

The Viva Connections template can be downloaded directly from Microsoft's website.

However. before you download the package, we recommend that you review the step-by-step guide by Microsoft on how to set up Viva Connections.

What are the key features of Viva Connections?

Customise Viva Connections with your company branding
Create a centralised destination that’s personalised for employees
Provide a unified communications channel to aggregate and share essential information
Target communications and dashboard items to individuals or groups
Boost critical items to maximise exposure
Build a modern employee experience on your existing infrastructure
Integration with partner providers and human resources systems
Create custom adaptive cards to connect to your existing applications

What is the roadmap for Viva Connections?

Five new Microsoft Viva Connections capabilities were recently released:

Pre-pinning Viva Connections in Microsoft Teams for frontline workers can help them feel supported and informed as soon as they log in.
Inline setup right from the Viva Connections app in Teams will provide minimal setup from admins and a streamlined editing experience for operators.
Integrating Viva Learning and Viva Topics cards in Viva Connections can keep employees aware of upcoming and available training and encourage them to become Topics experts.
Adding Viva Engage and Yammer content to the feed will bring employees richer content by providing relevant information from Viva Engage and Yammer, such as Storylines, Praise, and Q&A.
Suggested dashboard cards will recommend relevant dashboard cards from the SharePoint store to Viva Connections customers.

What are some of the limitations of Viva Connections?

Viva Connections for desktop is not yet supported in the Teams mobile app.
Only modern SharePoint sites and pages can be viewed in Teams. All other content will open in a browser.
Some functionality is not available for SharePoint pages viewed in Microsoft Teams, such as social gestures, comments on a page as well as the ability to add an event automatically to an Outlook calendar.