On February 13, 2023, Microsoft Viva Engage released features for leadership engagement, employee communications, and knowledge sharing across the organization
I appreciate the ambition, Dan, but please do understand that Viva Engage is a very hard sell. It doesn't feel like it was built because your customers wanted it, but because Microsoft wants to sell "Viva Suite" licenses. And only having the all-in option with the full Viva Suite license means that so many companies won't get to experience the new Viva Engage features because they cannot justify the immense cost for the full Viva Suite license.
That's important feedback, and we're listening to you and other customers.
The good news is that we built Viva Engage and these products very much to meet customer needs. We don't invest in building products that haven't been well researched and justified. These new features deliver some of the top requests we've had from customers over the years; and the next wave of features deliver even more. So customers representing millions of users are, in fact, readying to use and (in some cases) already using these features.
I think at the core of your comment is a very important concern about the bundling of the features *only* with the Viva suite, as opposed to offering a more targeted way to acquire the features. We've heard that from a good number of customers and I personally agree with that. We are listening. Stay tuned.
It is good to hear that at some point in the future we may get the chance to buy into Viva Engage without having to pay for the full Viva Suite license. As someone working in Corporate Communications, my thought process is that when people working in individual departments (like Comms, HR, ...) are interested in Viva products, they may be able to justify the purchase costs and push it through for the individual Viva product of their interest - but not for the whole Viva suite. To get a green light for the whole Viva Suite license sooo many departments would have to come together, build a cohesive vision for the future of the employee experience and together argue for the purchase of the full Viva license. Departments I might add that currently already have their own solutions and might not even know about how Viva could help them. That's so many stars that would have to align, the far likelier outcome is that everyone stays in their lane and the employees don't get anything from Viva at all (except maybe Connections and Engage). Being able to buy into individual Viva products might generate momentum within companies for Viva that under the current license model just will not happen.
Aside from Viva Engage and regarding your comment about building products that are well researched and justified, I want to give you one other piece of feedback: Please improve the intranet tech that is the foundation for Viva Connections!
Three years ago Microsoft was really pushing the Microsoft Intelligent Intranet - with new features like multilanguage, audience targeting and many more that finally started to close the gap to external intrranet-in-a-box solutions. Since then, development has almost completely stalled. I have heard that there are many teams at Microsoft currently working on intranet tech but there seems to be no product lead for "intranet" anymore at Microsoft and there definitely is no cohesive vision to improve the intranet experience. The product has almost exactly the same shortcomings and bugs that it had three years ago. Trying to get customer feedback to Microsoft always leads into dead ends - whether you try to find someone directly who wants to hear that or whether you try to go the official route with the Microsoft Feedback Portal. It's a shame because in many ways the product is competitive but nobody's talking about it at Microsoft anymore.
The Microsoft Intelligent Intranet could be so much more if Microsoft were to put the same efforts into promoting and further developing it as it does for Viva. Since Viva Connections needs a SharePoint intranet, it should be in the best interest of at least the Viva Connections team to improve the intranet experience. Please make intranet a thing again at Microsoft. If the intranet is not at the core of the employee experience, I don't know what is.
Well said. I hadn't put my finger on it, but we're faced with similar: something that is too big to address in one go, and too disparate to risk embarking on piecemeal.
There is one feature that is unlocked by subscribing to a single Viva product. Subscribing to Topics will unlock Answers in Engage. But I agree with you that it would be good to offer an Engage Premium option to subscribe to the premium features listed here.
I appreciate the ambition, Dan, but please do understand that Viva Engage is a very hard sell. It doesn't feel like it was built because your customers wanted it, but because Microsoft wants to sell "Viva Suite" licenses. And only having the all-in option with the full Viva Suite license means that so many companies won't get to experience the new Viva Engage features because they cannot justify the immense cost for the full Viva Suite license.
That's important feedback, and we're listening to you and other customers.
The good news is that we built Viva Engage and these products very much to meet customer needs. We don't invest in building products that haven't been well researched and justified. These new features deliver some of the top requests we've had from customers over the years; and the next wave of features deliver even more. So customers representing millions of users are, in fact, readying to use and (in some cases) already using these features.
I think at the core of your comment is a very important concern about the bundling of the features *only* with the Viva suite, as opposed to offering a more targeted way to acquire the features. We've heard that from a good number of customers and I personally agree with that. We are listening. Stay tuned.
It is good to hear that at some point in the future we may get the chance to buy into Viva Engage without having to pay for the full Viva Suite license. As someone working in Corporate Communications, my thought process is that when people working in individual departments (like Comms, HR, ...) are interested in Viva products, they may be able to justify the purchase costs and push it through for the individual Viva product of their interest - but not for the whole Viva suite. To get a green light for the whole Viva Suite license sooo many departments would have to come together, build a cohesive vision for the future of the employee experience and together argue for the purchase of the full Viva license. Departments I might add that currently already have their own solutions and might not even know about how Viva could help them. That's so many stars that would have to align, the far likelier outcome is that everyone stays in their lane and the employees don't get anything from Viva at all (except maybe Connections and Engage). Being able to buy into individual Viva products might generate momentum within companies for Viva that under the current license model just will not happen.
Aside from Viva Engage and regarding your comment about building products that are well researched and justified, I want to give you one other piece of feedback: Please improve the intranet tech that is the foundation for Viva Connections!
Three years ago Microsoft was really pushing the Microsoft Intelligent Intranet - with new features like multilanguage, audience targeting and many more that finally started to close the gap to external intrranet-in-a-box solutions. Since then, development has almost completely stalled. I have heard that there are many teams at Microsoft currently working on intranet tech but there seems to be no product lead for "intranet" anymore at Microsoft and there definitely is no cohesive vision to improve the intranet experience. The product has almost exactly the same shortcomings and bugs that it had three years ago. Trying to get customer feedback to Microsoft always leads into dead ends - whether you try to find someone directly who wants to hear that or whether you try to go the official route with the Microsoft Feedback Portal. It's a shame because in many ways the product is competitive but nobody's talking about it at Microsoft anymore.
The Microsoft Intelligent Intranet could be so much more if Microsoft were to put the same efforts into promoting and further developing it as it does for Viva. Since Viva Connections needs a SharePoint intranet, it should be in the best interest of at least the Viva Connections team to improve the intranet experience. Please make intranet a thing again at Microsoft. If the intranet is not at the core of the employee experience, I don't know what is.
Well said. I hadn't put my finger on it, but we're faced with similar: something that is too big to address in one go, and too disparate to risk embarking on piecemeal.
There is one feature that is unlocked by subscribing to a single Viva product. Subscribing to Topics will unlock Answers in Engage. But I agree with you that it would be good to offer an Engage Premium option to subscribe to the premium features listed here.