Viva Topics: What We've Learned So Far
Microsoft Viva Topics is an add-on component to Microsoft 365 and SharePoint that allows you to curate and publish topic pages. These topic pages can be surfaced via cards across SharePoint and coming soon across Yammer, then eventually Teams and Outlook.
Viva Topics Set Up
The main entry point to Viva Topics is the topic center. Users will see a personalized view of the content here. This contains topics that they have been listed with or interacted with, along with resources regarding the different topics.
Q: “Is the topic center a standard SharePoint communication site?”
It has a lot of the same attributes but there are a couple things that are non-standard, for example the “edit dialogue” to edit the topic center homepage.
Topic Lifecycle
For Topic administrators’ new topics go through a lifecycle before they are published.
Suggested - Viva Topics suggests topics based on corpus of M365 content with minimal human interaction.
Confirmed - A human confirms that the topic in question is worthy of curation.
Published - A human creates and edits a Topic Page for the confirmed topic.
Removed - A human deletes the topic page.
Topics Suggested by the Viva Topics AI Engine
Users are given the option to be listed on a specific topic by confirming either “yes or no” which will help curate what topics are suggested. Suggested topics are ranked based on a quality score. Topics can also be filtered via a search bar for a more specific approach.
Users can pick topics from the suggested page and confirm or remove them. Confirmed topics can then be published to a different topics page.
Q: “Is the topic page layout able to be changed, like use new sections or add different web parts?”
The topic pages are editable. Web parts can be added, and section structure can be changed. The cards are static, however.
There is a bit of publishing lag when it comes to editing and publishing a topic. However, it is scheduled to be fixed this quarter.
Searching for a Topic
When users create and search for a topic, it becomes a bookmarked search result. Alternate names can be added to make search easier, but these alternate names must be added manually.
Fresh and New
Recently Delivered:
- Distinction between curated and AI-recommended sites on Topic Pages
- Accessibility improvements (up to 400% magnification)
- Early Adopter Program for new pilot sites
Coming Soon:
- Accelerated publishing for new topic creation
- MIP sensitivity levels to exclude sites/content from topic discovery
- Syntex taxonomy to generate topics
- Integration between search bookmarks and topics
- Knowledge Manager control over topic discovery for AI-suggested topics
- Experts opt-out if pinned on a topic
- Types of Topics
Do you have any questions for us on Viva Topics or other things? Continue the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #AskSympraxis and mention @SympraxisC.