Most SharePoint intranets launch strong and then go quiet. News posts slow down, the quick links stop matching how people actually work, and employees spend their day in Teams and Outlook instead of on the home page.
Microsoft Viva is built to close that gap. It doesn’t replace your intranet. It takes the content you already manage in SharePoint, puts it in front of people where they work, and adds the conversation, feedback, and measurement a static site can’t deliver on its own.
What Microsoft Viva Is
Viva is Microsoft’s employee experience platform: a set of apps that sit on top of Microsoft 365. The lineup has changed a lot in the past two years, so here’s where it stands today.
- Viva Connections (now the SharePoint app in Teams): your intranet home site, news, and dashboard inside Teams on desktop and mobile.
- Viva Engage: communities, conversations, leadership posts, and Q&A across the organization.
- Viva Amplify: plan internal campaigns and publish them to SharePoint, Outlook, Teams, and Engage from one place, with reporting on reach.
- Viva Learning: surfaces training from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and your own content where people already work.
- Viva Insights: personal and team data on work patterns and wellbeing.
- Viva Pulse and Viva Glint: quick team feedback and organization wide engagement surveys.
As of 2025, Viva Topics and Viva Goals have both been retired.
The Viva Connections Rename and Why It Matters
In June 2026, Microsoft finished renaming the Viva Connections app in Teams to the SharePoint app. Existing setups, custom app names, and logos keep working. What changed is where the experience is configured: it now lives with your SharePoint home site.
The takeaway is simple. The Teams experience is only as good as the intranet behind it. If your home site is cluttered or out of date, that’s exactly what employees will see in Teams. Microsoft’s own planning guidance points organizations with classic SharePoint sites toward modernizing first, so an older intranet needs attention before Viva can do much with it.
How Viva Turns a Static Intranet into an Active One
- It meets people in Teams. News, the home site, and the dashboard open right inside Teams, so remote and frontline staff don’t have to hunt for a URL or remember a bookmark.
- It personalizes the experience. Dashboard cards for approvals, shifts, Power Apps, and key links can be targeted by audience, so a warehouse lead and a finance analyst each see what matters to them.
- It adds a conversation layer. Viva Engage communities give employees a place to respond, ask questions, and connect across locations. An Engage card can sit right on the dashboard.
- It turns posts into campaigns. Amplify lets communicators publish one message across several channels and see what actually landed.
- It closes the feedback loop. Pulse and Glint show how people feel, so intranet content can respond to real concerns instead of guessing.
What You Probably Already Own
Microsoft 365 and Office 365 enterprise plans with a Teams license already include Viva Connections, along with core Viva Engage and personal Insights. Premium features like Amplify, leadership corner, and advanced Engage analytics require additional Viva licensing. Check what your tenant includes before you build a rollout plan around it.
Where to Start
- Audit your home site. Confirm it’s modern, current, and easy to navigate, with audience targeting set up.
- Pick one or two modules tied to a real problem. Struggling to reach frontline staff? Start with the SharePoint app in Teams and the dashboard. Low participation? Add Engage.
- Define success before launch. Decide which numbers matter: reach, usage, survey scores, or fewer “where do I find” questions.
- Assign owners. Dashboards and communities fade fast when nobody is responsible for them.
Make Your Intranet Ready for Viva
Viva works best on a well-structured, modern SharePoint intranet. Compass365 helps organizations design, modernize, and roll out intranets that employees actually use, in SharePoint and in Teams. Explore our SharePoint intranet and portal services or reach out to talk through where Viva fits in your plans.
