The City, the Office & the Guide (SharePoint, Teams & Viva)

With so many tools, it can get a bit chaotic! To try and simplify what they do and how they work together, let’s consider them as the city (SharePoint), the guide (Viva) and the office (Teams).

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The city – Microsoft SharePoint

SharePoint acts as the city, providing a centralised area where people from different departments and teams can work, share information, and collaborate effectively.

It provides the necessary tools and infrastructure for teams to store, organise, and collaborate on documents, files, and information. It also serves as the central hub where employees can create and manage content, create team sites, and establish workflows.

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The office - Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is like a bustling virtual office where team members gather, communicate, and collaborate in real-time. It’s buzzing with activity.

With Teams, you can access documents, chat and call colleagues, access your calendar, and plenty more.

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The guide – Microsoft Viva

And finally, Viva is your knowledgeable city guide, seamlessly integrating with Teams and SharePoint to enhance the overall employee experience. It offers valuable insights, resources, and tools that enable individuals to easily navigate their digital workplace, helping them figure out where things are and what’s relevant.

In particular, Viva Connections and Viva Engage are two Viva modules that organisations can easily implement and get immediate benefits from.

Viva Connections serves as a personalised intranet page, bringing together a wealth of information from various sources. Its dynamic feed is powered by news posts and pages sourced from your SharePoint site and other relevant locations. Imagine having a customised hub where you can access a wide range of content: from a company newsletter and upcoming events to the employee handbook and beyond. The possibilities are truly limitless. Each of these valuable features is conveniently displayed as interactive tiles, allowing you to simply click and explore the information that interests you.

Viva Engage functions as your organisation's dedicated social media platform. If you're using Yammer, this is it's replacement! It’s a vibrant space where you can express your thoughts, share shoutouts, and post photos with your entire team or specific groups within your company. Just like on social media platforms, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, you can engage in discussions, exchange ideas, and foster a sense of community. For instance, you might use Viva Engage to post a link to an interesting article you've come across and wish to share with your colleagues, sparking meaningful conversations and knowledge-sharing within the organisation.

For more info on Viva and the other applications within it, read our blog post here.

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Some important points

• Viva Connections & Viva Engage aren’t a replacement for SharePoint. They’re an enhancement.
• You can have SharePoint without Viva Connections & Viva Engage, but you can’t have Viva Connections & Viva Engage without SharePoint.
• SharePoint, Microsoft Teams & Viva (particularly Engage and Connections) are all intertwined.

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Talk to our experts

We recommend assessing your SharePoint setup before adding any of the Viva modules. And if you don't have SharePoint implemented yet, we can help you get set up. Our Viva and SharePoint specialists are readily available to demonstrate the products and show you ‘real-life’ examples of how they can all work for your business. Feel free to reach out to us with a message, and let’s schedule a time to connect and discuss.