Part Two: The Viva Connections ‘Trail’
A Connector Between Teams and the Enterprise Home Site
March 2021 | Insights From the CEO – Continuing our ‘trail’ metaphor, the first of the four current trails in the Viva Trail System is Connections.
Where Does the Trail Go?
The primary destination of the Connections Trail is to the enterprise home site (in SharePoint). For enterprises who already have invested in SharePoint, their ‘intranet’ Connections first and foremost just get you from the top left corner of the persistent Teams left-side navigation bar to that existing Home Site. So rather than having to navigate outside of Teams and to SharePoint to get to the Home Site ‘trail’, one click from Teams takes you straight there.
What’s New in the Connections Experience?
In addition to this new spur trail to the existing home site trail, Connections also adds some related amenities. So not only has the new spur trail from Teams to SharePoint been cut, but there is an expanded trailhead, better signage and announcements. In the local (physical) trail system that I referred to in my first Viva post, there is a permanent message board/structure at each trailhead that has maps, guidelines and other permanent information.
In addition, there are often other notices, messages and bulletins (posted by volunteers who make the rounds to the trailheads) about current conditions, fire status, wildlife, etc. The Resources tab in Connections is similar to that message board. It gives you the ability to have at your fingertips a set of Resources that contain a mixture of static information that is useful to reference rather than remember, as well as sources of more dynamic, newsy information.
When Will It Be Available?
The connector between Teams and the enterprise home site is rolling out now (mid-March). It may be in your tenant already or if not will likely be arriving in the next several weeks. If you already have a home site, then connecting Connections from the Teams desktop experience should be a straightforward step for IT. If your enterprise has not yet designed and developed an explicit enterprise home site, then getting Connections up and running is likely a somewhat lengthier effort for your enterprise. Check with IT on rollout plans.
What Will It Cost?
According to Microsoft, Connections is included in most of the current 365 licenses.
Additional Resources
- The Microsoft Viva Blog.
- A deeper dive (20+ minutes) video into Viva Connections (from the March 2021 Ignite Conference) – this page also has links to other Microsoft resources.
- The opening Viva blog post in this series.
Connect with Us
If you would like to continue this discussion on Microsoft Viva, contact us by email or +1 214 292 7000.
About the Author
Chris Shaida is an Enterprise Managing Consultant and Co-Founder of RealFoundations. Shaida established RealFoundations to provide a place where like-minded professionals can focus their deep industry and solution knowledge and passion to help improve the operations of our real estate industry and corporate real estate clients.
About RealFoundations
RealFoundations (RF) is the world’s foremost professional services firm focused solely on the real estate industry. Through our delivery of Management Consulting and Managed Services, we help companies that develop, own, operate, service or invest in real estate make better, more profitable decisions. We are proud partners to over 500 real estate companies around the globe, providing accelerated solutions that solve some of real estate’s most complex challenges. We Make Real Estate Run Better.
