Viva Engage External Networks: Upgrade before June 1, 2025

Organizations using Viva Engage external networks to communicate with outside users must upgrade to the new “modern” format between Apr. 1 and June 1, 2025, or face automatic deletion. Viva Engage (formerly Yammer) is a social platform that helps an organization’s employees and partners collaborate. The external network feature is being upgraded to take advantage of Azure and finally remove the last of Yammer’s dependencies. The new external network format (called External Network v2) changes the hosting platform, UI, and sign-in process, which will affect all users, but mostly external users who sign in with personal guest accounts. Engage admins need to perform a thorough analysis of their Engage external networks, as older deployments may not be readily visible in the admin module if they were migrated from Yammer. Microsoft states migration requests will be sent to customers using Viva Engage external networks, starting after Apr. 1, 2025. Customers who do not accept the requests by June 1, 2025, will have their external networks automatically deleted. Additionally, customers considering new Engage external networks should wait until Apr. 1, 2025, and check that the new hosting platform is available. Microsoft is expected to supply more details by the end of Mar. 2025.