What is Viva Amplify?

Posted on January 29, 2024 by Louise Howland

In workplaces, easily sharing communications can be tricky, especially with remote teams. Sometimes a Teams message doesn’t just cut it, and finding time for a company-wide call isn’t always possible, especially in peak season.

That’s why Microsoft created Viva Amplify, making it easier for team leaders to share messages and empower their teams, no matter what time it is or where their team works.

What is Viva Amplify?

Viva Amplify is an employee communication management platform. This means that team leaders and company owners can quickly and efficiently create targeted employee communications. It’s designed to help leaders connect and align with their employees in a centralised and organised manner, without any miscommunication.

Viva Amplify is part of the Microsoft Viva suite, which is a software designed for employee wellbeing and communication. It has been in global, general release rollout since October 2023, so it is relatively new at the time of writing but so far seems to be a well-received product by Microsoft experts and bloggers.

How does Viva Amplify work?

Viva Amplify works in a similar way to an email sending platform like Mailchimp. You create email, SharePoint and Teams campaigns and select who you want to send to and when you want to send it. After the campaign has gone out, you can see reports and take learnings for the next campaign.

However, these campaigns are sent out to your employees only and can go through Outlook, Teams and SharePoint.

What features does Microsoft Amplify offer?

As well as the ability to communicate cross channel with employees, Viva Amplify also offers:

• Clear campaign goals. HR staff or senior management can write the key messages they want to communicate as well as provide the goals for the campaign. The person then creating and sending the campaign has a breadth of knowledge that they can apply to the creative and copy within the campaign.
• Approval management. Viva Amplify offers an easy approvals process that is integrated into Microsoft. All you need to do is select the relevant people who need to approve your campaign, and then they are prompted to provide feedback and sign off, which is all housed within Viva Amplify. No longer do you need to print everything out and get handwritten comments!
• Sentiment analysis. Microsoft says that Viva Amplify allows you to use sentiment analysis to understand how different groups react to messages, meaning that HR teams can respond appropriately.
• Insights and reporting. As well as sending all the campaigns, Viva Amplify provides metrics and performance reports that help you see what is and isn’t working.

Microsoft themselves have also announced that Viva Amplify will soon have Microsoft Copilot in to help teams best utilise AI as part of their work. Microsoft has also released Organizational Data into private preview which promises to add “richer experiences” to Viva products, including Viva Amplify.

So, why use Viva Amplify?

The use case for Viva Amplify is a strong one. Rather than needing to import and export data in and out of a platform like Mailchimp, you can keep this all succinctly inside Microsoft’s world. This is not only better for your HR and people teams, as it’s less of an admin burden on them, but is also better for data protection, as data is being ported across fewer platforms.

Viva Amplify works well for teams across multiple locations, larger companies with lots of staff, and companies where there are regular meetings with external clients or suppliers. However, there’s not really any company, aside from micro employers, who wouldn’t benefit from a platform like Viva Amplify.

You’d most likely want to use it as an HR or people manager to create communications and ensure all of your employees receive the same message.

How does Viva Amplify fit into the wider Viva suite?

Microsoft Viva has expanded from an single wellbeing product into a fully-fledged employee fun and wellbeing arm of Microsoft.

Viva Amplify fits in as an internal communication tool that includes sentiment analysis. A lot of the other Viva tools use anonymised responses and working habits to flag issues, whereas Viva Amplify is purely about clear-cut employee communication. This makes it a really powerful tool for HR and people teams to cut across the noise in emails and Teams, by having key comms in multiple places.

It’s different to Microsoft’s other communication platforms like Viva Connections and Viva Engage as it is a one-way formal communication platform, rather than something more akin to a social media platform.

For example, Viva Engage brings in elements from platforms like Reddit, Facebook and LinkedIn and encourages people to connect with others in a variety of formats. Then, Viva Connections has a more community feel to it, and offers employees a personalised dashboard to encourage inclusion, connections and transparency.

Viva Amplify is unique, as it allows one team to quickly communicate across the company without the need for users to head over to a separate channel.

How do I get Viva Amplify?

Viva Amplify can’t be purchased as a standalone product and isn’t part of the Viva options in 365. Instead, you’ll need to either purchase the Microsoft Viva Employee Communications and Communities at £1.64, per month, per user, or the Microsoft Viva Suite and £9.90 per user, per month.

Need help with Microsoft Viva within your business?

ramsac is able to help you integrate the Viva suite including Viva Amplify, within your business and reap the benefits of employee engagement. We’ll advise on which Viva options are best for you, and help you to make the most out of whatever plan you choose. Get in touch to see how we can help you today.