Learn more about new applications introduced by Microsoft. Viva apps are: – Microsoft Viva Connection – Microsoft Viva Insights – Microsoft Viva Learning – Microsoft Viva Topics.
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? Episode transcript
This is episode 4 get to know Microsoft Applications. Today I would like to share some comments about Microsoft Viva applications. So set of new apps that are announced by Microsoft, totally new functionalities that will be focused on the people’s well being during remote work during the covid time. This application is bringing you additional value. Additional experience to already existing products. There’s a lot of marketing on top of that. So at first when you look at this, it looks that it’s set of totally new applications. Never heard about, but when you will dig in a little more than you will recognize that part at least part of these applications are known for very long time, but they have new branding added by Microsoft to recognize their better and to build that as a package of new applications that should support working on the remote time, focus on the people. Aspect in the office environment. At first, when I start to dig into the details of each application are started to see OK. I know these apps. This is something that is really announced. A lot of time ago and that was really surprising for me that there is a huge marketing campaign behind it. But on the other hand, when you think about there is a clear business case added to the additional functionality’s additional applications that were planned to be diploid on Microsoft 365. I think this is the key here because it’s too many new features. It’s too many new applications that will be extended. There will be added to Microsoft 365 and Microsoft needs to figure out the idea to brand them somehow and to sell them to the business users across the globe. Another thing that you can recognize here. All of these applications are teams focused, so they are delivered as extensions for Microsoft Teams. And to be fair, this is negative way how people work today. Whole collaboration on Office 365 is really focused on Microsoft teams and I think this is a good direction. On the other hand, I’m starting to be a little worried we could get to the time when teams will be extremely heavy from additional applications. Additional components that are added there. Thankfully we are still far away from such situation. We can use heavily Microsoft Teams. And we will see how this platform will grow in future. Remember that you can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify Anchor, YouTube, or whenever you listen right now. Microsoft Viva Applications concept is built based on four applications. Today, the first Microsoft Viva Connections is something that you can really know from the past. Because this is the SharePoint Home side up, so this is something that I really look for and this is the applications for teams that will bring SharePoint Landing page experience to your Microsoft Teams today. You can get something quite similar, building very simple custom. Up that will bring share point to your Microsoft Teams, but thankfully this would be something that will be by design delivered by Microsoft and will give you the possibility to build really nice SharePoint experience on your Microsoft Teams. One more thing, which is also quite important here, roll out of Microsoft Viva connections up will be also connected with extended of the SharePoint Online functionalities from perspective of building modern SharePoint Portal. You will be able to get here, great new functionalities like knew up navigation on left side of the teams, new features, new look and feel and new layouts, new web parts. So this is something that they really could modernize the way how you communicate using Microsoft Teams especially from perspective of bringing SharePoint experience there. If you want to navigate your users to your SharePoint portal maybe to your Yammer through SharePoint, this applications will be really good solution to do that. From perspective of the road map, the application is not yet present, but there is a good chance that it will be available in second or third quarter on 2020 first year and this will be totally free. Applications available for everyone. The second application announced by Microsoft in Viva Up Spark is Viva Insights. This is some kind of connection of Microsoft Workplace Analytics and Microsoft my analytics and will bring some kind of well being data for end users and managers. This application will help you to monitor to analyze how your employees work, what are their feelings about them. Maybe there are space to improvement from perspective of making their life easier or improve the way how they work on the daily basis to build better workplace for them. Of course this will be teams application provided there which will gather that data from data sources available in Microsoft Workplace. Plus my analytics. The good thing about that that the solution will be also extended by partners extensions that will bring additional analysis, additional data. One of the elements that could be used there will be gleaned reports. This is there some kind of extension or part of LinkedIn that delivers some kind of insights about the employees and their behavior, so there is good chance that this solution will help you to build better workplace to analyze the situation in your current company. The first version of the application is already delivered in Preview mode. You can go to teams and add inside up there and analyze your. Data based on Microsoft exchange information, so this is some kind of very initial stage with very basic functionality, But this could give you some kind of high level overview. What this application will be in future. The next features will be provided in next two quarters. Part of the functionality will be delivered for free for the license users from perspective of other applications which were mentioned previously or you will be able to Bolt extended functionality. Some kind of. Premium versions of this tool to use it internally very well being focused application which will help you to review where you are. View for learning application. Today is the least clear for me as a possible solution that could be used in short term. In general. This is some kind of Udemy platform that gathers multiple sources of training materials and delivering the teams up that provides the training. The course is the learning value for employees working remotely. Of course, the general idea of the application is quite simple. This is something like Microsoft 365 learning pathways, but open for the partners that will deliver the content. Probably there will be also some kind of premium version of the solution or internal licensing to both discourses or to bring that kind of integration directly to Microsoft Teams. But general idea seems very simple. Build the platform that gathers the whole training materials that curses them, learning solutions that you own. And deliver them directly to the end users. Two teams using Microsoft Visual Learning platform from perspective of the timeline today, there’s no end preview version. The solution will be delivered in the second part of this year. The version for the partners to prepare some kind of integration will be delivered earlier. From my perspective, this is the least exciting solution on the Viva UPS package, but the same time. Probably there’s a good chance that it will bring additional value for. Every organization. Last but not least, application on our list is Microsoft Viva topics. This is generally project Cortex connected with some kind of business case added to it. Initially, Project Cortex were strongly focused as extension for SharePoint Online to build some kind of meta data. Automated AI based knowledge management system or additional layer that manage knowledge management system. In this case, what happened Microsoft? Build this application on top of Microsoft Teams and deliver the whole idea behind it. The application is globally available. Right now it is premium solution that you can build on your Office 365 tenant. If you have business or enterprise licenses assigned to your business. Users costs of the name user is €5 of $5 per month per user, so you can treat that as salty premium. Additional feature that could be used on. Office 360. Five with the user interface bring to teams, but with very strong integration with SharePoint and metadata behind it. This solution is also interconnected with SharePoint syntax, so AI based OCR recognition solution that could help you to bring some meta data in repeatable paths from the documents you scanning to SharePoint Online to categorise the knowledge in the organization with the structure that you will prepared. To be fair, I have no chance to work with the solution yet. It’s looking very promising. From my perspective, it could be really the new layer of the way how we treat documents, pages, announcements, attachments across the whole organization using that kind of solution. Of course, using of that tool will strong. It depends on the budget of the company that would like to use it because you have to license every user for additional €5. It’s not extremely expensive, especially when you’re thinking about such complex solution. But I know that companies are not used to is the extent or not licenses for Office 365. If you have really good business case like R&D team in your organization that looking for something like that. I believe Viva Topic Slash Project Cortex could be really great solution. To address that, I highly recommend to try it because there is 30 days trial license for the solution. Frankly speaking on my side I have the plans also to get through that plication to review that if I will have any additional findings I will share that with you. One more thing, which is also important to know about in the fourth quarter of this year, there will be additional API added to the solution for the partners, which gives the possibility to integrate third party systems with the project Cortex. It could be also game changer, especially if you want to integrate that knowledge systems with other applications like Salesforce or maybe service now, but still today it’s extremely difficult to predict how it will behave and really if Viva topics will. Will win their organizations and will be heavily used by by global business. You can find out the shell materials like links, notes or articles in episode notes. You will also found their transcription and useful tools that will help you in your journey through Office 365 applications via applications are still a little mystery for me. We will see how strongly they will impact the way how people work and improve the well being of employees across globe using Microsoft Teams. And Office 365. Hopefully there will be the business cases to use them, but I’m glad that Microsoft change narration across the new functionalities to bring some kind of business Contacts and to sell them better to the end users across the globe. Hopefully applications like connections, topics, learnings and insights will be something that we will use in daily work in future. Of course we will see what the future will bring. Course, I hopes that we will get back to the office is and will be not forced to work Home Office all the time. But still having that kind of applications will be always additional value. Thank you for listening of this episode. You can always get back to it by visiting Office 365 atwork.com/four. See you in next episode.
