Viva Suite Management Requires Many Hands

• Viva components are set up and configured through Microsoft 365, but also rely on their own and other services’ admin consoles.
• Since most Viva apps are based on existing services, there could be unintended consequences if services like SharePoint Online are not set up properly.
• Customers should consider the high cost of administration when rolling out Viva services, which could easily overtake actual licensing costs.

Viva is a brand for Microsoft’s employee experience platform (EXP), software intended to improve employees’ productivity by connecting knowledge workers with peers, providing easier access to relevant information, and presenting users with productivity guidance and measurement. Viva is positioned against offerings from third parties such as IBM, Kudos, PeopleDoc, Qualtrics, and ServiceNow. (For a list of all current Viva family services, see the sidebar “Components of the Viva Family.”)

Although Viva apps are integrated with Microsoft 365 and inherit much of their service management from Microsoft 365 administration, Viva components are affected by management settings found outside the Microsoft 365 admin center and require additional administrator types. This administrative burden can significantly increase the effective cost of deploying and maintaining Viva services.