All information is current as of 24 June 2024
In today’s technology-driven world, effective and engaging organisational communication is essential. To connect with employees, businesses must use engaging mediums. In this blog post, we’ll look at the Viva Connections feed and the benefits it can bring to your intranet homepage and communication experience.
What is feed for Viva Connections web part?
The Feed web part is designed to display content from various sources such as SharePoint, Viva Engage, and Stream (on SharePoint) into a unified viewing experience.
Each user’s Feed is unique, as the content displayed is personalised based on the SharePoint sites and Viva Engage communities they follow, and videos which are shared to them.
So, for that reason, it is not just a copy of what’s being shown in your news web part. It will give a different view of news as it’s personalised and drawing from different sources.
Figure 1 News web part displaying news posts
Figure 2 Feed web part displaying from across SharePoint, Viva Engage and Stream (on SharePoint)
For each piece of content in the feed, you can easily see the author, the time it was posted and the social reactions. Employees can then click on any item in the feed and be taken to more in-depth content.
As you’d expect, the Feed will always respect permissions and only show what people have access to.
Individual content items in the Feed will display for a 30-day period.
Showcase video content
Internal Communication teams often invest a lot of time and effort creating amazing videos – only for them to get a few views and fall off the homepage or disappear in a news post.
In our work with Internal Comms teams, we’re often asked questions like “How do I keep the eyes on our great video content?” and “How can I make videos appear in and play from the news web part?”
The Viva Connection Feed web part gives teams an excellent opportunity to surface more video content.
Stream videos built on SharePoint or OneDrive that are shared with your entire organisation will appear in the Feed.
Depending on how your organisation stores and shares videos in Stream will impact the viewing experience for videos in the Feed.
Use these steps to start surfacing video in your Feed web part.
Figure 3 Embedded video in Feed web part
Showcase news posts feed
Any news posts or links that are published from a designated organisational news site will display in the Feed web part. It will also personalise the display and serve up news from other SharePoint sites you follow, visit frequently or are relevant to your interests. Audience targeting applies as you’d expect.
Comms teams do have some ability to influence the content shown in the Feed web part. This comes mostly through Boosting News. Boosted news items will display for up to four days.
Showcase social
Finally, the Feed will bring in posts from Viva Engage.
Again, teams have some influence over what appears in the Feed. If you feature posts, or create them as announcements, the Feed will prioritise these.
Here’s a full list of the types of posts that can make their way to the Feed:
- Viva Engage All Company Featured Posts
Viva Engage All Company Announcements
Viva Engage All Company Posts
Viva Engage Followed Community Featured Posts
Viva Engage Followed Community Announcements
Viva Engage Followed Community Posts
Viva Engage Followed Community Q&A posts
Viva Engage Followed Community Praise posts
Viva Engage Storyline posts
The best bit?
We hear a lot of teams and employees saying they’d like a more personalised intranet experience.
This is a simple way to bring personalisation into your homepage. It’s included in your licensing, it’s out-of-the-box and waiting to be used!
Microsoft have said they’re experimenting and rapidly iterating on the logic used to personalise this experience, so we know it will only get better over time at offering new and exciting content relevant to who you are.
If you haven’t already, why not add the Feed to your homepage and start surfacing your boosted news, featured Engage posts and your engaging videos!
Like what you see?
The Viva Connections Feed web part is your gateway to a more connected and engaging employee experience. If you’re ready to ready to enhance your digital workplace or want to explore your options for improving your employee experience, let’s chat now.
Get in touchAbout the author
Kristy Long is a Digital Workplace Consultant at Engage Squared. She has over 15 years experience delivering intranets and digital workplace solutions both as a consultant and as an in-house intranet manager. Kristy has worked across a large number of industries including government, health, education, energy and financial services and spent most of her in-house career working alongside Internal Communication teams.
Kristy really enjoys getting to know the pain points of clients, and helping them to understand how to address these and improve the employee experience. To balance a busy home life, she also really enjoys the peace and quiet swimming, running and reading can bring.
