Right this moment Microsoft took the wraps off new apps that it plans to add to its Viva employee-experience platform within the coming yr. The corporate additionally introduced that its Viva Sales CRM companion app might be typically accessible on October 3. Officers made these bulletins throughout a digital occasion on September 22.
Viva is supposed to assist corporations onboard and work together with staff, whether or not these staff are on web site, working remotely or in some type of hybrid-work mode. Microsoft first went public with Viva, which runs on Teams, in February 2021. The suite included a mix of already accessible and new Microsoft applied sciences, together with Yammer, SharePoint, and items of its “Project Cortex” data administration work.
Viva features a rising household of modules: Viva Connections for broadcasting inside communications and firm assets; Viva Insights, private well-being providers like Digital Commute, Headspace integration and really useful actions based mostly on analytics; Viva Matters, which is supposed to assist individuals join with consultants found via Individuals Playing cards; and Viva Studying, a hub for customers to entry company-provided and third-party studying supplies. Because the preliminary launch of Viva, Microsoft has added different modules to it, together with Viva Goals, Viva Engage and Viva Sales, the primary of numerous role-based apps coming to the suite.
Microsoft is revising the Viva Connections house web page in order that customers will have the ability to see all of the Viva apps in a single place. Viva Pulse is a brand new suggestions app coming to the suite in 2023 that builds on and extends the Microsoft Types ballot capabilities. Viva Amplify, one other new app within the suite, is designed for “communications groups and leaders” to allow them to broadcast their messages and campaigns extra persistently and broadly.
Microsoft is also including new integration factors in Viva Targets, together with an enhanced Groups app that enables customers to examine in and collaborate on Aims and Key Outcomes (OKRs); an integration with Azure DevOps for routinely updating work objects; a hyperlink to Energy BI datasets for monitoring Key Efficiency Indicators (KPIs) and outcomes; and integrations with Microsoft Planner and Challenge. Extra integrations between Viva Studying and LinkedIn Studying are on the roadmap as nicely, permitting customers to see all their LinkedIn Studying Hub content material synced inside Groups.
Viva Have interaction, its rebranded Groups Communities app, is getting a brand new “Management Nook” the place staff can work together straight with administration and host Ask Me Something (AMA) occasions. And whereas the idea of profile playing cards already exists in Microsoft 365, Microsoft is including a brand new Individuals functionality in Microsoft Viva functionality to those playing cards so as to add extra info to them, resembling pursuits, areas of information and objectives.
Officers reiterated right this moment that the corporate continues to be planning so as to add the Glint HR tools that Microsoft bought in 2018 to the VIva suite someday in 2023.
Viva Sales, which will be generally available October 3, is a CRM “companion” app that’s meant to combine with Groups, Outlook and Workplace apps together with Phrase, Excel and PowerPoint. Officers stated that it might work with Microsoft’s personal Dynamics 365 Gross sales CRM app/service and CRM programs from different corporations, beginning with Salesforce’s CRM system. Whereas officers would not disclose future plans, I would not be shocked to see Viva-branded apps for customers in advertising, finance and IT sooner or later.
Microsoft additionally revealed right this moment its newest Work Trend Index findings, based mostly on interviews by Edelman Information & Intelligence with 20,000 full-time or self-employed data employees in 11 markets this summer time. Highlights included methods to deal with ongoing mistrust by many in administration about how productive distant employees will be and the necessity to “re-recruit and re-energize” staff.