Microsoft Viva Learning: how to bring enterprise training to Teams
Viva Learning is part of the Microsoft Viva universe.
Its goal is to revolutionize corporate training, making it more accessible, organized and social. How?
Let's find out together!
What you will find in this article
What is Microsoft's Viva Learning
Designed to be the digital training hub for companies, Viva Learning represents one of the core modules of the Microsoft Viva suite.
This tool was created to collect and disseminate corporate and non-corporate e-learning content, simplifying employees' professional development within a single platform for work and collaboration.
You have probably already guessed: it is a personal app for Microsoft Teams.
What is intranet.ai?
intranet.ai is the ready-to-use corporate intranet, designed to reduce costs and implementation times, thus creating a collaborative and modern digital work environment:
- Initial price of 3,650 €/year for a complete intranet
- 50+ applications, including advanced search, document management system, push notifications via Teams, personal profile, and FAQ pages
- 100% integrated with SharePoint Online and Microsoft 365
Viva Learning fits within the Teams universe to expand it with its own functionality and leverage the concept of "Teams as a platform".
This string of words refers to the idea, or rather, the philosophy that conceives Microsoft Teams not only as an application for real-time communication - with its famous video calls, chat, and workgroups - but also, and more importantly, as a vessel ready to perform a myriad of additional tasks through integration with Microsoft and third-party tools.
Think of Planner, for example, and the way its relationship with Teams makes it possible to design and manage multiple work plans where corporate teams interact on a daily basis.
Or take the case of SharePoint Online.
Its union with Teams means that users can organize files and documents into repositories specific to their groups and work channels, as well as access content on the corporate intranet without ever going directly into SharePoint.
To explore this topic further, check out our article on the benefits of Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online integration.
Viva Learning is part of this movement, initiated by the parent company, to revolutionize the digital work environment of companies, in an era where the latter plays an increasingly crucial role in their growth and expansion strategies. But that's not all.
At the heart of this new approach to online work is to improve the user experience, helping them work more productively, and establish a quality relationship with their organization.
So let's see what features make Viva Learning a unique and essential tool for your digital workplace.
What are the main features of Viva Learning
Let us start by saying that your company can incorporate Viva Learning into its digital workplace by purchasing any Microsoft 365 license.
However, we must emphasize that you will only have access to basic functionality with Business or Enterprise licenses.
Therefore, to unlock the full potential of Viva Learning, one of the following types of licenses must be purchased:
- Microsoft Viva Learning, currently at 3.40 euros per user/month.
- Microsoft Viva product family, currently at 7.60 euros per user/month.
Now that we have clarified how your company can make use of Viva Learning, let's explore the basic and advanced features of the application for Microsoft Teams.
The basic functionality of Viva Learning
Within your own Teams app, you can enter Viva Learning by clicking on the three dots at the bottom of the side navigation menu.
Access Viva Learning from the Microsoft Teams interface
Once on the home page, Viva Learning will allow you to locate, share and consume a wide range of training content*.
*Remember that your company must first give you permission to use the platform.
With the basic version, you have content available from three categories of providers:
- LinkedIn Learning.
Specifically, about 120 professional courses are offered with a wide range of topics, ranging from topics such as cyber security and video editing to corporate writing and blogging.
To unlock LinkedIn's entire library of 16,000+ online courses, your company must purchase the platform's own license, LinkedIn Premium, for each user it wants to enable.
- Microsoft Learn.
Microsoft's signature learning portal offers interactive courses to learn how to use its products and services, including Azure, Power Platform and Dynamics.
Its training offerings include 80+ hours of activities in 23 different languages and constantly updated, following the latest in the Microsoft universe.
- SharePoint.
The Microsoft 365 tool is used to store, organize and share (also) on Viva Learning the online training materials created by your company.
LinkedIn and Microsoft Learn course details
In order to enable sharing by these providers by default, admin users must enable them in Microsoft 365 settings. In fact, it has been announced, but specific management for Microsoft Viva modules is not yet available.
So admins need to go into "Org settings" and then "Viva Learning", where they will need to check the box for the desired providers.
In this way, their content will be displayed and cataloged on the platform's home page.
Enable content providers from Microsoft 365
However, special mention must be made of SharePoint.
In order to view content stored in one of its sites, the URL must be entered in the provider enable box.
Once Viva Learning is connected to a SharePoint site, a folder titled "Company Learning Materials" and a list called "Learning App Content Reposit" will be automatically created within it.
These repositories house all content to be shared with the company network through Viva Learning.
Importantly, you can place files and folders from all your SharePoint sites within them.
In addition, you can customize the documents by inserting a link to a cover image or category tags that will be more fully exploited by Viva in the near future.
In fact, searching by content tags will be enhanced so that you can quickly find interesting material for your training throughout the Microsoft Teams space.
Detail of the Company Learning Materials folder
It should be remembered, however, that only users with certain permission levels can add and edit content on the SharePoint site linked to Viva Learning. Among the most suitable permissions are either Full Control or Collaboration.
This ensures that corporate training management is not only centralized, but also more secure and organized.
To delve deeper into the topic of permissions on SharePoint, we recommend our article on SharePoint Online and its 7 key features.
Going beyond managing and enabling providers and their content, let's see what features Viva Learning offers to build and share your own training path.
In the interface for each piece of content, from courses to PPT presentations, there are three main commands by default:
- "Share".
With this feature, you have the ability to share a piece of content with your work team or a particular colleague.
To do this, Viva Learning sends in the Teams individual or collective chat a customizable card, which will show the cover image, the title of the course or file, the due date by which to view the content (optional), and a comment from you (also optional).
- "Bookmark".
By clicking on the typical bookmark icon, you can save any content you wish to see later within your personal area, called "My Learning".
- "Add to Calendar".
This command will be essential in helping you organize training moments in your hectic work weeks.
In fact, adding content to your Teams calendar will allow you to keep track of breaks dedicated to your skill development without getting in the way of calls or other appointments.
In addition, you will receive a notification from the app reminding you to stop the flow of your activities to focus on your personal growth journey.
Viva Learning content interface
"Add to Calendar" functionality
Finally, Viva Learning will always ask you to rate the content you consume on a 5-star scale.
This is an important system for directing users' choice toward the content most loved and valued by the community.
