Viva Topics product updates: Answers in Viva, new topic types, and more

Introduction:

 

Today, at the Empowering Your Workforce in Economic Uncertainty event in London, Microsoft announced Answers in Viva and enhancements to Viva Topics.

 

Microsoft Viva Topics applies AI to empower people with knowledge and expertise in the apps they use every day. Viva Topics automatically organizes content and expertise across your systems and teams into related topics like projects, products, processes, and customers. Knowledge becomes more powerful when it is connected - with people, with other topics, and with contextual data.

 

This month, we’re excited to announce several new features that will help workers quickly resolve questions and better connect to and decipher organizational knowledge - including Answers in Viva, new topic types, and more.

 

 

Answers in Microsoft Viva

 

How many times have you faced a question but were unsure who to ask? Answers in Microsoft Viva can help. Answers use the suggested experts already connected to Viva Topics to help get answers to your questions.

 

Matching questions will appear when you type your question.

 

Answers in Viva connects employees to answers they need by crowdsourcing knowledge from across the organization. Answers is a conversational experience for asking questions and connecting to experts for answers. Natural language processing helps match those questions with any existing answers, and the experience rewards experts who contribute back to the knowledge base. Answers works across the suite to connect employees based on their subject matter expertise captured in Viva Topics, to get their questions answered, connect with new experts, and increase their learning. 

 

Currently, users can access Answers in Viva in the Answers tab in the Viva Engage app, and we will be expanding Viva Answers to topic pages.

 

To learn more about Answers in Viva, check out our blog and Mechanics video:

 

 

Answers in Viva can be tracked under Roadmap ID: 72188 and will reach GA in early 2023.

 

Display connected topics on people profile cards

 

Want to learn more about what other topics someone is an expert on? Now, when you select someone’s name or picture in Outlook or other Office web apps, you can find that information on their profile card. Viva Topics will soon integrate with the information that appears in the profile for each person. Updates to this feature can be tracked with Roadmap ID: 88697 and will reach GA in Nov 2022.

 

Cameron’s connected topics are displayed in his people profile card.

 

New topic types

 

Topic types provide better context to users by providing them with a category for suggested topics that helps them distinguish two topics with similar names and determine what type of information they’re viewing. We’ll continue to suggest types like products, projects, events or more, and we’re adding the ability to identify over 150 types which are more granular, like conference, framework, process, and more.

 

As a topic contributor, you can select one or more types for the topic, and set a type to appear at the top of the Topic Card and Page in a purple pill-shaped designation. Work on new topic types can be tracked under Roadmap ID: 72181 and will reach GA in Nov 2022.

 

The topic type “project” is displayed at the top of the A11y topic page.

 

Connections: Suggested and Reciprocal

 

One feature our customers have frequently proposed is suggested connections. Viva AI looks at the shared resources and people between topics to identify topics that may be related. These suggested connections appear as dotted lines in the Related Topics web part. As an editor, you can confirm or reject these connections.

 

Suggested connections in the Related topics web part.

 

We’re also now releasing reciprocal connections. A reciprocal connection is created when you connect one topic to another. Once two topics are connected, the link appears as a reverse suggestion, going the other way.

 

These features can be tracked under Roadmap ID: 88695 and are available now.

 

Change in score columns for Knowledge Managers

 

We are continuing to expand the information that we deliver to knowledge managers to better equip them to manage their Viva Topics knowledge base. This update replaces the existing “Quality” column with two new columns in the Manage Topics view: the “Topic Score” and the “Org Topic Score”. The Org Topic Score is a measure of how complete and high quality the information is associated with a topic before applying permission trimming. The Topic Score is calculated the same way, but accounts for the files/resources that the current user has permissions to view. Used in combination, knowledge managers can focus their efforts on publishing high quality topics – focusing on topics where their access allows them to see a more comprehensive view of the topic. This feature can be tracked under Roadmap ID: 88700 and is available now.

 

Topics score for completeness and quality.

 

Resources

 

Want to learn about how our customers are using Viva Topics to solve their knowledge discovery and knowledge sharing challenges? Watch our video about how Northumbrian Water Group used Topics to share asset information across their organization and check out our case study on how RealFoundations is giving their global team frictionless access to critical knowledge such as industry terminology and service offerings.

 

Closing

 

In case you missed it, watch the Empowering Your Workforce in Economic Uncertainty event and hear from Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, Ryan Roslansky, CEO of LinkedIn, and Jared Spataro, Microsoft's CVP of Modern Work, for urgent insights every leader needs to know in a rapidly changing economic environment. To learn more about other Microsoft Viva innovations announced today, read the Microsoft 365 blog by Seth Patton, check out the Microsoft Viva website, and explore the Viva Innovation Brochure.

 

Please join this discussion here on the TechCommunity. We look forward to sharing even more news with you at Microsoft Ignite in October 2022.