Teams is the tool that Microsoft is betting on for making video calls, especially in professional environments. Now, with the launch of a new functionality called “Viva Engage”, the company wants to provide the tool with a Slack-style productivity suite, where work teams can share much more than videoconferences: documents, shared tasks, planners and calendars, etc.
Microsoft ditched the Stories format on LinkedIn last year, but is now bringing it back for Microsoft Teams’ Viva Engage
Microsoft had already bought a similar in-house productivity tool 10 years ago called Yammer, but had to shut it down in 2019 and has focused on developing Microsoft Teams ever since.
Now give Teams those corporate collaboration tools with Viva Engage. It is a suite with specific functionalities to promote teamwork and productivity in the company, but almost what is most striking about it is its design: it is very similar to Facebook.
To judge whether this statement is true or not, just look at this image. This is not a profile on the Meta social network, but Viva Engage, the new Microsoft Teams productivity suite.
What are the features included in Viva Engage? With this tool you can develop digital communities and common places of communication for cooperative environments. It has a feed where all members can see the updates and interactions of other users of your company, where you can upload posts, videos, images… like on Facebook, with a look and feel very similar.
In fact, the format may be mimicked to encourage users to share content on a platform they are already familiar with. It even includes a part of Stories, where users can upload photos and videos that will expire 24 hours after being published. Interestingly, Microsoft already last year abandoned the Stories format on its professional social network, LinkedIn, which it bought in 2016. However, now ephemeral content is once again part of Viva Engage in Microsoft Teams.
