Enhance Your SharePoint Intranet with Microsoft Viva Connections

You’ve spent hundreds of hours creating and perfecting your SharePoint intranet. 

It looks incredible, the content is fantastic, and it’s a gold mine of organizational information and resources. 

And yet…that gold mine isn’t being discovered, and that fantastic content isn’t being accessed.  

Viva Connections to the rescue. 

Microsoft’s Viva Connections offers seamless integration with SharePoint, pulling all that content you’ve created and putting it front-and-center for your organization in Microsoft Teams—the one app nearly everyone in your organization uses every single day. 

Employees don’t have to hunt for important company news, policies, or brand collateral. Employees who never visit your SharePoint site will have easily accessible information and resources (goodbye excuses) at their fingertips.

What Is Viva Connections?

Viva Connections provides a powerful internal organization gateway for your employees. It is designed to keep everyone engaged and informed thanks to a customizable application within Microsoft Teams.   

Viva Connections in Teams 

With Microsoft’s Viva Connections, you get better communication, more effective collaboration, and more productivity. Here’s how: 

• Personalized Feed: A news feed specifically tailored to each employee. Viva Connections curates company news, announcements, resources, and updates based on an individual’s role, department, and interests. 

• Customizable Dashboard: Not everyone needs to see every piece of information. Viva Connections allows you to create personalized dashboards for different teams or departments. These dashboards can include quick links to essential resources, upcoming deadlines, and relevant company documents.

• Seamless Integration: Viva Connections integrates with other Microsoft 365 apps, which allows users to access files, collaborate on projects, and participate in discussions without leaving Teams. 

The Dashboard for Viva Connections 

A central hub that curates all the information, resources, and whatever else your employees may need, tailored to their specific roles and projects.  

• Dynamic Organization: No more static layouts. The dashboard uses dynamic cards that can be arranged, resized, and swapped in and out to suit individual user preferences. Need quick access to your timesheet every Friday afternoon? Done. Want to see your team’s upcoming deadlines front and center? Easy. 

• Actionable Insights: The Viva Connections dashboard goes beyond simply showcasing information. It integrates with various industry-specific apps, allowing you to embed functionality directly into the dashboard. For example, you can review a sales report, approve quotes, or update customer details all in one location. 

• Collaboration Made Easy: The dashboard's dynamic nature extends to collaboration. Imagine team members reviewing a document right in the dashboard or assigning shifts collaboratively, keeping everyone on the same page. 

The Feed for Viva Connections 

Staying informed and engaged is crucial for a thriving organization. Viva Connections tackles this with a personalized feed for each employee. 

• Targeted Information, Widely Available: Viva Connections delivers news and content specifically curated for each individual’s role, department, and permissions, ensuring the most important information is available to every employee across multiple locations. 

• Unified Content Hub: The feed is a one-stop shop for all your company’s updates. It aggregates content from various sources, including SharePoint sites, Viva Engage discussions, and even Microsoft Stream videos. Everything your employees need to know is delivered in a single, digestible stream—right into Teams. 

• Always in the Loop: The feed is accessible in Teams and SharePoint, ensuring employees stay updated. 

The Resources for Viva Connections 

As your intranet grows, it becomes more difficult for users to sift through all the available content to find the key information they are searching for. Viva Connections streamlines navigation with a user-friendly resources section. 

• Customizable Navigation and Dynamic SharePoint Integration: Get the best of both worlds with frequently accessed SharePoint sites intelligently brought to the surface while custom navigation links can be personalized for different users.  

• Seamless Access on Any Device: The Resources section is optimized for desktop and mobile devices, ensuring a smooth and intuitive experience. Finding information is a breeze whether checking a laptop or using the Teams mobile app. 

Viva Connections can enhance your SharePoint intranet to make it even more accessible and dynamic to employees in the digital workplace.

Ready to Enable Viva Connections for Your Organization? 

As you continue to focus on building that stellar SharePoint content, let’s bring Viva Connections to the party to empower your employees to be more informed, productive, and connected. 

The Modern Workplace team at HBS is here to help! Our Microsoft experts are dedicated to assisting organizations leverage the full potential of the Microsoft ecosystem, including Viva Connections. 

We can help you: 

• Develop a Viva Connections strategy tailored to your specific needs.
  
• Customize dashboards and navigation to create a user-intuitive experience for your entire organization.
  
• Integrate all your Microsoft 365 tools for seamless collaboration and information flow.
  
• Expertly design and build your SharePoint environment, ensuring you get the most out of Viva Connections. 

Contact HBS today to unlock Viva Connections’ full potential.