Guideline for Microsoft Viva Learning in Microsoft 365

Do you want to build Learning Management System in Teams?

Microsoft Viva Learning is a dedicated learning Teams app that will help you to manage knowledge in the organization.

Viva Learning is a Teams app available in Microsoft 365 and is a part of Microsoft Viva Suite. Learning app is a dedicated Microsoft Teams app that extends Teams functionality and delivers a professional learning platform available on Desktop, tablet and mobile.

If you would like to improve knowledge management and learning experience in Microsoft 365 – Viva Learning could help you to build a dedicated LMS system.

What is Microsoft Viva Learning?

Viva Learning is one of the Microsoft Viva apps available in Microsoft 365. Learning is the Teams app that delivers Learning Management System solution directly to Microsoft Teams on desktop, mobile or tablet.

Microsoft Viva Learning gives you the possibility to build a centralized knowledge center that presents your internal training materials like videos, presentations, documents, or recorded meetings hosted on SharePoint or OneDrive. Moreover, you will be able to deliver additional content thanks to integration with third-party learnings apps: LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn and more.

Viva Learning could be leveraged to get to your users with training, onboarding materials, or the knowledge base you build in the organization.

Microsoft Viva Learning features

Viva Learning is available in two models seeded – free app available in Microsoft 365 plan and premium – dedicated separated plan with additional features.

Functionalities available in Microsoft Viva Learning Free / Seeded:

• Viva Learning in Teams and mobile
• Access full Microsoft Learn and Microsoft 365 Training libraries and the top 125 LinkedIn Learning courses
• Search, share, and chat about learning content
• Create learning tabs in Teams channels
• Organization-generated learning content with SharePoint and Viva Learning
• Interest-based personalization of the training
• Featured content

Features available only in Viva Learning Premium:

• Course recommendations and progress tracking
• Integration with partner content providers
• Integration with learning management systems
• Surface learning content across the Microsoft 365 suite

Microsoft Viva Learning integrations

Viva Learning premium offers the possibility to integrate with these learning content partners:

• Skillsoft
• Coursera
• Pluralsight
• edX
• Cornerstone
• SAP SuccessFactors
• Josh Bersin academy
• Edcast
• Udacity
• Udemy business
• Harvard Business Publishing
• Infosec
• Go1
• OpenSesame

? Remember you need to have a separate license to third-party platforms you would like to integrate with. Viva Learning includes access only to chosen LinkedIn Learning courses.

Microsoft Viva Learning Teams app features

Viva Learning is a Teams application that aggregates training and online courses and delivers a friendly interface for the end-users.

Ens user can open the course or training and watch (2) the materials directly in Viva Learning.

Additional features (1) that are available:

• You can open the course in the source platform
• Share the course in Teams or via Link
• Send the Recommendation to the user about the training
• Save the training in the Bookmark for the later

Recommendations – Assign courses to users in Viva Learning

You can assign training to the users using Recommend button.

Assign the training to the user through Recommend to (1) section. You share additional Note (1) and set the Due date (2).

You can review the assigned by you courses in the Manage section. This is the place where you can track the progress made by users to whom you did assign trainings.

Every user can find Bookmarked and assigned through Recommendations courses in the My Learning tab.

Search in Microsoft Viva Learning

End users have the possibility to search for the training materials through:

• Featured courses (1)
• Full-text Search (2)
• Interest-based recommendations (3)

You can search Viva Learning for the courses and training materials using the full-text search engine. You can filter the Viva Learning search results based on Providers – platforms that deliver the training and Duration.

Microsoft Viva Learning Mobile

Viva Learning dedicated to mobile delivers exactly the same experience for the end-users but in a more responsive design.

What is the most important element Viva Learning offers a very easy way to deliver training materials to end-user devices: smartphones, tablets, and more. The only thing user needs to have Microsoft Teams mobile app installed. Who doesn’t ?

Requirements to use Microsoft Viva Learning

Using the Viva Learning app does not require advanced pre-requirements on Microsoft 365 side.

You need to own one of the listed licenses: Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, A3, E5, A5, Office 365 F3, E1, A1, E3, A3, E5, A5, Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, or SharePoint K, Plan 1, or Plan 2.

You need to have Microsoft Teams rolled out and set up to use Viva Learning.

Microsoft Viva Learning adoption materials

Microsoft prepared a few adoption materials that could help you in the adoption and rolled out of Viva Learning app:

• Adoption guide
• Day in Life guide
• Infographic
• Datasheet
• Flyer
• Email template
• Live Demo of Viva Learning

Microsoft Viva Learning logo

Below you will find the Viva Learning app icon.

Microsoft Viva Learning licensing

Microsoft Viva apps are licensed as a separate product in Microsoft 365.  Viva subscriptions are not included in Microsoft 365 or Office 365 plans. You need to buy Viva subscriptions separately.

Microsoft Viva Learning app is available as a free seeded product with basic features. If you would like to use all capabilities of Viva Learning you will need to bought Premium Viva licenses for the users.

Viva licenses are not included in Office 365 E plans or Microsoft 365 Business plans.

It is possible to buy Viva Learning subscriptions for the Learning app or the whole Via Suite.

Microsoft Viva Learning pricing

Viva Learning is an app available in a seeded free model and the premium one.

Costs of Microsoft Viva Learning premium app:

• Microsoft Viva Learning subscription cost is $4.00 per month/ per user
• All Microsoft Viva Suite apps (including Viva Learning) subscription cost is $9.00 per month/ per user

Microsoft Viva Learning trial

The Premium version of Viva Learning offers a 60-days trial version of the plan for 50 users. You can use it to test the premium features of Viva Learning.

? 60-days trial license for 50 users of Microsoft Viva Learning

Microsoft Viva Learning roadmap

New features will be rolled out in near future to Viva Learning. Microsoft Viva Learning roadmap:

• Surface learning content across the Microsoft 365 suite
• Viva Learning and Viva Insights: block time for learning
• Viva Learning and Viva Topics: topic-relevant learning
• Viva Learning and Viva Connections: learning content in Viva Connections
• Microsoft Viva: Updates to multi-geo support

How to set up Microsoft Viva Learning app in Teams?

Assign Viva Learning license to users

The first action you need to do during the Microsoft Viva Learning setup is the assignment of the Viva licenses.

In case you would like to use premium features of the Microsoft Viva Learning at the first step you will need to assign licenses to the specific users. Remember that you need to assign licenses for the Viva Learning premium and Viva Learning trial licenses.

To assign Microsoft Viva Learning subscriptions to the users go to Microsoft 365 admin center, Users (1) and Active users (2). Select the user to whom you would like to assign Viva license and select Microsoft Viva Learning (5) in Licenses and apps (4). Save the changes.

Assignment of the subscription is required for all Viva Learning premium and trial users.

Assign Viva Learning admins to dedicated role

In the next step, you will need to nominate and assign admins for the Viva Learning application. Assigned administrators will manage the Viva Learning application, training materials and integration with third-party applications.

The administrator selects which other learning content sources (for example, SharePoint or supported third-party content provider sources) will be available to users of Viva Learning. The admin then configures those sources to make sure the content is available for search and discovery and can be browsed by the employees who use Viva Learning. Content from Microsoft Learn, Microsoft 365 Training, and select content from LinkedIn Learning is available for free and enabled by default.

To assign Microsoft Viva Learning admins to dedicated system roles go to Microsoft 365 admin center, Roles (1) and Role assignments (2). Select the role Knowledge Administrator (3) and select the option Assign admins (4).

In the new screen, select Add user button and select the user you would like to nominate to be Viva Learning admins.

? Remember that this role is not limited only to Viva Learning. Also, other products like SharePoint Syntex are using this role no manage access.

Who should be assigned this role?

Assign the Knowledge Administrator role to users who need to do the following:

• Create and manage topics and acronyms
• Manage all standard properties in SharePoint
• Create and delete all resources in SharePoint
• Manage access to content through security groups
• Update knowledge, learning and content understanding settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center
• View all standard settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center
• View all properties for sensitivity labels in the Compliance center
• Create and manage support tickets in the Microsoft 365 admin center
• Monitor service health

Note: This role also lets users create content centers in SharePoint, but users must also be assigned a license that includes Microsoft SharePoint Syntex.

Setup Microsoft Viva Learning app configuration

Viva Learning has a dedicated configuration panel where you can set up the way how the Viva application will work and manage integrations with the external App you would like to connect with.

You will find the Viva Learning configuration in Microsoft 365 admin center, Settings (1) and Org settings (2). In the Services tab, you will be able to select Viva Learning (3).

You will be able to configure the Viva Learning app. You will be able to decide if you would like to:

• Enable Tracking of Recommendations – Improve the quality of recommended training materials for the end-users.
• Training materials providers – Select the training sources you would like to integrate with Viva Learning. List of the available sources will depend of your

Save a change when you will configure the Viva Learning.

Add and configure SharePoint content to Viva Learning

You need to add a SharePoint site address to the configuration of the Viva Learning to integrate it with training materials hosted in SharePoint.

Select SharePoint and put the address of the SharePoint site.

Save your changes.

? Remember that you will need to configure the SharePoint site to work with Microsoft Viva Learning.

Setup SharePoint content repository for the Microsoft Viva Learning

You need to configure your SharePoint site to integrate it with Viva Learning.

How to manage access to SharePoint-hosted content in Viva Learning

Viva Learning will inherit the permissions to the content hosted on SharePoint. Manage permission on the content level to limit or extended access to the specific materials to specific users.

What kind of content you can share in SharePoint in Viva Learning

Viva Learning supports the following content types:

• Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF
• Audio (.m4a)
• Video (.mov, .mp4, .avi)

Create content structure in SharePoint for Viva Learning

Open the Document Library in chosen SharePoint site and create a folder and select Copy link (1).

In the new windows copy the generated URL.

Save this URL in your notes. You will need it in the next steps.

You will also need to create an additional column in the SharePoint library – Single line of text.

Select the name of the column – Description and save it. It could be that this column already exists in the document library. In such case just add it to the view.

Now you can add training materials to a created folder, add Title and Description. Assign access rights to the specific files.

https://m365aw.sharepoint.com/:f:/s/Trainings/Et10fStInv5BqjxO4RJgXeIBFa9W5Fd3y0vvsCYoEdpeAA?e=lnWpgn

Configure content sources in SharePoint

On the SharePoint site, you did nominate a new List is created: Learning App Content Repository.

You can easily navigate there directly from Viva Learning app. Open the Viva Learning app and go to Settings (2).

In the new window open Permissions (1) and select the Check access button.

Open the list and select the New (1) button. In the New item form name the content course and paste the generated previously link to the field: Folder URL. Save it.

You did set up the connection to the training materials hosted on SharePoint.

? Remember it could take up to 24 hours for new materials will appear in Viva Learning app.

☝️ Current setup of Viva Learning does not support deleting the training materials in SharePoint. The safest solution is to limit access to such materials only to admins of the Viva Learning platform.

Materials from SharePoint will appear with the name of your organization. All available materials will be presented in your Viva Learning app.

Integrate Viva Learning with other learning management systems

You can set the integration between Viva Learning and other LMS systems used in the organization. To setup the integration go to Viva Learning configuration in Microsoft 365 admin center, Settings (1) and Org settings (2). In the Services tab, you will be able to select Viva Learning (3).

To implement integration between Microsoft Viva Learning and the third-party LMS system you will need to set up the integration. In the configuration, you will find all parameters you will need to get from the LMS admin to configure the integration. In case of integration of Udemy you will need:

• Client’s Host URL
• Organization ID
• Client ID
• Client Secret

If an administrator of the LMS system will have difficulties in finding this information, Microsoft prepared instructions on how to get them.

How to add Viva Learning app to Teams?

To deploy the Viva Learning app in Microsoft Teams you need to add and configure this app first on your Office 365 tenant.

1. Go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and open Teams admin center.

2. In the Microsoft Teams admin center go to Teams apps (1), Manage apps (2). In the new screen use the Search bar (3) and look for “viva”.

All available Viva apps will be listed on the screen. Select the Viva Learning (4) app and select Allow and Customize / Edit.

There is no specific configuration for the Viva Learning Teams app itself.

How to install Viva Learning app in Teams?

After the previous step, Microsoft Viva Learning will be available in Microsoft Teams. Now you need to Install the Viva app by Pining it to the employee’s app bar in Microsoft Teams.

1. Go to the Microsoft Teams admin center and open Teams apps (1) and Setup policies (2).  Select Global (Org-wide default) policy.

2. On the new screen, in Pinned apps section, use Add apps (3) button and search for “Viva Learning” apps. Apply changes by using the Save (4) button.

Remember that changes will be rolled out to end-user Desktops and mobile Teams apps and it could take sometimes 1-2 days before Viva Learning will be visible.

How to manage the content in Viva Learning?

In Microsoft Viva Learning app content is loaded from integrated content sources providers like SharePoint, Microsoft Learn, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, or others. If you would like to manage the training you need to do that on the source platform level. Treat Microsoft Viva Learning as an aggregator of the learning content from multiple sources.

You can manage featured materials on the landing view of the Viva Learning application.

Go to Admin (1) and select Create featured set (2) button.

In the new window, you will be able to configure new featured set by setting:

• Title – display name for the featured material in the Viva app.
• End date – deadline for the campaign
• Find course – find and select available training material

Selected featured courses will be promoted on the landing page of the Viva Learning application.

Conclusion

Viva Learning ultimate guideline: deploy Microsoft Viva Learning in your Teams app. Learn about the setup, pricing and features of Viva Learning.