Microsoft Viva Engage at BYU‑Idaho
Viva Engage is BYU‑Idaho’s community and conversation platform within Microsoft 365 and Teams. It helps employees connect across departments, share knowledge, ask questions, and engage with leaders through communities, campaigns, and events—all in the flow of work.
Note on the name: Microsoft rebranded Yammer to Viva Engage across web, mobile, Outlook, and Teams in 2023. The change unified features without removing capabilities already included with Microsoft 365 licenses.
What you can do with Viva Engage
- Build and join communities around teams, roles, interests, or initiatives to keep conversations discoverable and inclusive.
- Ask and answer questions to tap into campus expertise; upvote replies and mark best answers to crowdsource solutions.
- Share updates and learnings through posts, images, videos, polls, praise, and Storyline to broaden reach beyond email.
- Run organization‑wide announcements and town halls with video, Q\&A, and analytics to measure engagement.
- Connect in Microsoft Teams and Outlook so participation happens where you already work.
BYU‑Idaho previously described Engage as a business social network for quick collaboration, broad information sharing, and group discussions—those benefits remain and are now deeper inside Microsoft 365.
Why use Viva Engage instead of email or chat?
- Reach and discovery: Posts are visible to everyone in a community (subject to permissions) and remain discoverable via search and hashtags—great for FAQs and cross‑department collaboration.
- Reduced noise: One conversation thread replaces fragmented email chains and forwards.
- Knowledge over time: Q\&A and marked answers help build an internal knowledge base that onboards new colleagues faster.
Key features at a glance
- Communities & Conversations – Open discussions, @mentions, pinned threads, polls, praise, file attachments, and group‑level files.
- Storyline & Stories – Personal posting space for leaders and employees; leaders can elevate important messages (premium).
- Leadership Corner & AMAs – Central place to engage with leaders and host “Ask Me Anything” events (premium).
- Campaigns – Coordinate communications using hashtags with analytics on reach and engagement (premium).
- Analytics – Community, event, and conversation insights; advanced analytics with premium.
- Answers in Viva – AI‑assisted Q\&A that connects questions to experts and topics (premium).
- Copilot in Viva Engage – AI assistance to draft or refine posts and prompts for leaders (premium).
How to sign in
- Go to engage.cloud.microsoft and sign in with your BYU‑Idaho account, or open Engage from the Microsoft 365 app launcher.
- In Microsoft Teams, select Apps ▸ Viva Engage (or look for Communities/Engage) to participate without leaving Teams.
Mobile apps
Viva Engage is available on iOS and Android so you can post, reply, and get notifications on the go.
Best practices to get value fast
- Join or create the right communities. Keep work topics organized; use clear descriptions and a short, sensible naming pattern.
- Use hashtags consistently (e.g.,
#PolicyUpdate, #Hiring) to improve search and campaign tracking.
- Mark best answers in Q\&A threads so future readers see what solved the problem.
- Prefer announcements for time‑sensitive news so followers receive notifications across Teams/Outlook.
- Review notifications to avoid overload—tune real‑time alerts vs. digests per community.
Notifications: stay informed, not overwhelmed
Adjust notifications in the web app or mobile app for mentions, replies, announcements, digests, and per‑community settings. If notifications seem quiet, verify Engage is allowed in your device or browser settings.
Governance and admin notes (for curious readers)
Microsoft provides an Engage admin center for tenant‑wide settings like usage policy, language, logo/branding, conversation controls, and announcement email behavior. (BYU‑Idaho IT manages these centrally.)
FAQs
What happened to Yammer?
Yammer was rebranded to Viva Engage in 2023 across web, mobile, Teams, and Outlook. Core capabilities and user data carried over; the change aligned the service with the Microsoft Viva suite.
How is Viva Engage different from Viva Connections?
Connections is the “home” experience for news, resources, and dashboards in Teams; Engage is the community and conversation layer that brings social collaboration and knowledge sharing. They’re designed to work together.
Can I include non‑employees in conversations?
Engage supports external participants via externally facing communities or events when enabled by admins. Check with BYU‑Idaho IT for current policy.
Where are files stored?
Files shared in Engage follow Microsoft 365 storage and governance (e.g., OneDrive/SharePoint), preserving compliance controls.
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