Microsoft Teams Announces Business Social Platform Viva Engage

Microsoft announces the evolution of Yammer Communities under the name Viva Engage. The social platform is visually and functionally similar to Facebook and is intended to bring users from Teams together.

Viva Engage serves as a partial replacement for Yammer Communities, a platform where business users can build a community and network with interested parties and colleagues. The service will be integrated into all versions of Microsoft Teams from August, including the desktop, browser and mobile application variants.

Yammer will not be completely replaced: only the Communities section in the Teams and Outlook app will be automatically converted to the new platform. Through browsers and the Yammer app, Yammer remains part of Microsoft’s portfolio. Communities, timelines and stories will continue to be available through Yammer and will also be visible in the new Viva Engage app.

In addition to a social media timeline that Microsoft calls the “storyline,” Viva Engage also makes it possible to share Instagram or Facebook stories of sorts. Not coincidentally, Microsoft also calls this ‘Stories’. Users can share photos or videos that can then be viewed in a carousel that is practically identical to Meta’s Stories. Unlike Stories on Facebook and Instagram, contributions via Viva Engage do not disappear after 24 hours.

Microsoft bought social medium Yammer about ten years ago for 1.2 billion euros and has since integrated the platform into the Teams ecosystem. In 2020, another major visual redesign was rolled out for the platform.