M365 Changelog: (Updated) Microsoft Viva – Use of Viva Topics in Viva Engage Grants Visibility of Topic Names

MC661222 – Updated September 27, 2023: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

In January, Microsoft announced the General Availability of Viva Topics in Viva Engage (Yammer) to customers. As part of the Viva Engage topics transition to Viva Topics, posts in Viva Engage (conversations, questions, polls, announcements, storyline posts) will be considered as Viva Topic resources. As a result, all users with access to posts in Viva Engage will be able to see the topic names applied to those posts in Engage as well as in other Viva Topics experiences in Microsoft 365 (e.g., Topic cards and pages).

Migrating Viva Engage to use Viva Topics supports a consistent topics experience in Microsoft 365 and allows for community-sourced knowledge to be accessible across an organization. For organizations not using premium Viva Topics experiences, the use of topics in Viva Engage will appear the same before and after topic migration. For organizations using Viva Topics, you will gain the premium benefits, such as topic cards in Yammer (Viva Engage), Viva topic pages, and centralized topic management.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 148465

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in mid-September 2023 (previously late August) and will continue to roll out to all Viva Engage networks by mid-October 2023 (previously late September). 

How this will affect your organization:

• All users with access to posts in Viva Engage will be able to see the topic names applied to those posts in Engage as well as in other Viva Topics experiences in Microsoft 365 (e.g., Topic cards and pages).
• Users with access to the post will see it as being associated with the topics applied to that post in Topic Center and the Topic Card.
• Users with access to the post will be able to see the name in the Viva Engage topic picker and in search experiences in Viva Engage.

Please note, the following behaviors will not change:

• Users must have pre-existing access to a topic to apply it to the post.
• Users will not be granted new access to other resources associated with the topic. Conversely, people who had access to the topic will not get access to the conversation if they didn’t have it already.

This change aligns with behavior already available in Viva Topic experiences in SharePoint. As an example, granting a user access to SharePoint document tagged with a topic extends access to that topic’s name and the association with the document. 

What you need to do to prepare:

Consider updating your Engage Usage Policy and/or public community description or community information panel to provide further user guidance. Review Viva Topics in Viva Engage for more information.

Additional information