To Set Up Microsoft Viva Topics

Overview of Viva Topics 

Viva Topics is a Microsoft 365 service that helps organizations to transform information into knowledge. Viva Topics uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to automatically search for and identify topics in your organization. It compiles information about them, such as a short description, people working on the topic, and sites, files, and pages that are related to it. A knowledge maimgnager or contributor can choose to update the topic information as needed. 

Viva Topics is one of the modules of Microsoft Viva. The other modules are Connections, Insights, and Learning. 

 Viva Topics uses AI to,

• Empower people with knowledge and expertise in the apps they use every day. 
• Help people learn, develop new skills, and innovate faster while they work. 
• Automatically connect, organize, and protect content across teams and systems. 

How to Configure Viva Topics? 

Knowledge admins

They are the ones who set up Viva Topics and manage it through the admin controls in the Microsoft 365 admin center. A SharePoint administrator can serve as a knowledge admin. 

To Start a trial/Buy Viva Topics 

To start, go to the Billing section of the Microsoft 365 admin center, select Purchase services, Purchase from Microsoft, then Add-ons, and search for “Viva Topics”. Click Start free trial. 

Set up Topic Wizard

In the Microsoft 365 admin center, select Setup, and then view the Files and content section. In the Files and content section, click Connect people to knowledge. On the Connect people to knowledge page, click Get started to walk you through the setup process. 

The Viva Topics wizard has four steps,

Discovery

Select the source from which the Topic can be identified. We can give a SharePoint site or select all sites so that topics can be generated from any of the SharePoint tenants.

Visibility

They are called Topic viewers who can see topic highlights on SharePoint modern sites. They are the ones who can provide suggestions also.

Permissions

They are called Contributors who have the right to edit existing topics or create new ones. One of these are called Knowledge managers who guide topics through the topic lifecycle. So to move a topic from one stage to another from the Manage topics in Topic center. So in the image below we are selecting contributors and Managers both.

Topic center

This is the site created as a last step where all the topics can be viewed. I have created a site named "Topics" here.

What is Topics Center? 

After the initial setup, you will end up with a new SharePoint site collection from where you can manage your tenant topics, in this site collection you will be able to manage the topics that are discovered automatically and able to create topics manually. 

When Microsoft Viva discovers topics, they appear as suggestions in the topic center. You will be able to use the topic center to discover recommended content based on the topics you follow or manage, personalized by the Microsoft Graph. 

Manage Topics 

In the Viva Topics topic center, a knowledge manager can view the Manage topics page to review topics that have been identified by artificial intelligence and appear in the suggested stage. 

It also shows the number of topics automatically created and can be moved to different stages.

Topic Stages 

Knowledge managers help to guide discovered topics through the various topic lifecycle stages: Suggested, Confirmed, Published, and Removed. 

A topic flows from the Suggested (which are identified using Artificial intelligence) and then those topics are if confirmed by Users move into the Confirmed stage. And if a topic is curated/edited so that some extra information is added that once published will move to the Published stage. The topic can also be marked as Removed if a Manager feels that is not relevant.

Topic Overview 

Once the topics site is ready, if you don’t see any topics being discovered (as it takes time for AI to create suggested topics) you can create your own manually.

Each topic is a new SharePoint page where you will be able to define,

• The topic names 
• The topic alternate names 
• A short description of the topic 

• Pinned people that are relevant to the topic 
• Pinned files and pages 
• Related sites and related topics 

• Connected Topics - It shows if a topic is connected to another topic

Discovery of Viva Topic 

Viva topics can be discovered at various locations like a SharePoint modern page, Office search, and in the future can also be viewed in Microsoft Teams and outlook. 

Topics are automatically discovered if the word used matches with the topic name or alternatively, we could also discover topics using “#” and it will prompt for all the topics in the tenant.

So, in here Manual Viva Topic is a SharePoint page, where two Topics SharePoint Online, Cloud Application are automatically discovered. And when you hover over it a card containing a brief about that will open up. 

 Permissions In Viva Topics 

Viva Topics users can't view the information in topics that their existing Office 365 permissions prevent them from seeing. Everything a user sees on a topic page (for example, SharePoint sites, documents, files) will be information they are already allowed to see. Viva Topics does not make changes to any existing permissions. 

Permissions in viva topics are configured in a way that you will only be able to see the information you have access to, this is applied for all the roles in Viva topics.