Viva Topics uses AI to reason over content across teams and systems, recognizing content types, extracting important information, and automatically organizing content into shared topics like projects, products, processes and customers. SharePoint Syntex then creates a knowledge network based on relationships among topics, content, and people. Attend this session to learn more about how Viva Topics, topic pages and how knowledge center can transform knowledge in your organization.

1. Canadian Cloud Summit

2. Viva Track
Introduction to
Viva Topics
Kanwal Khipple
2toLead Chief Executive
Officer & Microsoft MVP
Thu., Feb. 17, 2022 6:00 PM (EST)

3. SPEAKER | AUTHOR | SUPER GOOD LOOKING
KANWAL KHIPPLE, CEO
@kkhipple
bit.ly/linkedinkk
2014 2015

4. Canadian Cloud Summit
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6. Announcing Viva
There are six key elements to a great employee experience:

7. Agenda
Introduction
Knowledge & Content
Viva Topics
SharePoint Syntex
Microsoft Search
Next Steps

8. New experiences on the horizon
People spend about an hour a day–or up to seven weeks a
year–searching for or recreating information+
(SWZD 2021)
Turn content into usable knowledge
Use AI to reason over your organization’s content
and automatically identify, process, and organize it
into easily accessible knowledge.
Organize knowledge into topic pages
Enable your organization’s experts to share and
refine knowledge through curated topic pages,
automatically generated and updated by AI.
Make knowledge easy to discover and use
Deliver relevant topics cards in the apps people use
everyday.

9. What are we seeing?
Amidst major transformations in the ways we work already underway, we are seeing a number of factors that have been
created or exacerbated by the global pandemic
1. As we emerge from the pandemic organizations are hiring, often in large numbers
We are facing an influx of new workers who need to harness existing knowledge and expertise to be productive.
2. Organizations are moving towards hybrid and remote work is the new normal
Digital tools are even more important than before
3. Organizations are struggling with increased employee turnover, and this is projected to worsen
We are losing knowledge and expertise and it’s increasingly important to retain this knowledge and expertise.
4. Information is getting created at an ever-increasing rate
Users are bombarded with information and have become overloaded and overwhelmed, it’s increasingly challenge to manage the cognitive load of “context-switching”
5. Users are increasingly expecting us to deliver modern, user-centric experiences they are familiar with
Digital tools need to be increasingly sophisticated
What is impacting the focus on knowledge and content

10. Key findings: Challenges and risks
What challenges are they facing? What are their current risks?
Top knowledge sharing challenges:
Security
Training
Competency issues
Execs and BDMs are most likely to face
knowledge sharing challenges related to
onboarding, while ITDMs and I-Workers
experience knowledge drain.
Knowledge drain from people
leaving an organization / team is
considered most detrimental to
success with over a third saying
it’s something they experience
often.
Productivity is reduced by 11%-
14% due to time spent searching
for or recreating existing info.
This lost time adds up given half
of I-Workers leverage knowledge
sharing tools daily.

11. Given the majority don’t have knowledge sharing tools / practices
heavily integrated, email is relied on most for distributing info
Organizations with 10k+ employees are more likely to rely company intranet and email for sharing info
How orgs share information
75%
67%
58%
44%
43%
31%
30%
29%
14%
Email
Company intranet
Company meetings
File sharing tool
Social networking/comm. tool
Project management tool
Company database
Printed memos/documents
Knowledge sharing tool
Q6a. How does your organization typically share/distribute information within the organization among employees? This could be information related to HR, best practices, training, processes, policies,
company-wide assets/marketing, department-wide assets, etc. (Select all that apply.) Respondent: Total (n=750) Q16. How would you describe the degree to which knowledge sharing tools and processes
are integrated into your organization’s practices? (Select only one.) Respondent: Total (n=750)
Integration of knowledge sharing tools /
practices in organizations
Little to no
integration
10%
Some
integration
55%
Heavy
integration
35%

12. Majority depend on SharePoint as a knowledge sharing tool and a
notable portion learned tools as they used them without training
66%
48%
11% 9% 8% 7% 7% 6% 6% 6% 5% 5% 4% 6%
SharePoint Enterprise
search
tools
Confluence Guru Knowledge
-Owl
livepro Igloo Panviva Starmind Bloomfire SABIO Inkling eXo Platform Other
21% 28% 31% 20%
None – learn as use it A little – no more than a few hours A fair amount – substantial amount of time A lot – large amount of time
Orgs with 2.5k+ employees are more likely to
utilize SharePoint and those smaller than 10k
spend more time training on their tools.
Current knowledge sharing tool usage
Training time invested in knowledge sharing tools
Q10. Which of the following knowledge sharing tools does your organization currently utilize? (Select all that apply.) Respondent: Total (n=750)
Q12. How much training and/or time have you put into learning about your organization’s knowledge sharing tools and processes? (Select only one.) Respondent: Total (n=750)

13. 52%
44% 43%
28% 27%
24%
20% 19% 18%
Finding info faster so
you can spend more
time doing meaningful
work
Increasing efficiency,
productivity & work
smarter by reducing
cases of "reinventing
the wheel"
Having a single source
of truth so that there is
never any question
where employees should
go to find info
Avoiding the confusion
caused by outdated
or competing versions
of documents
Promoting self-
sufficiency by allowing
greater access to
knowledge & info, no
matter where you are
Enhancing quality &
ability to collaborate
by standardizing &
streamlining
ways of working
Reducing the loss
of know-how
Enabling access to
expert knowledge &
best practices
Quicker on-board
trainings & timely
access to
knowledge
Majority depend on SharePoint as a knowledge sharing tool and a
notable portion learned tools as they used them without training
Top 3 most appealing knowledge sharing tool benefits to i-Workers
Q25. Which three benefits are most appealing to you? (Select up to three.)
Respondent: I-Workers (n=300)

14. On average, employee productivity is reduced by 11%-14% due to
time spent searching for or recreating existing information
% Productivity lost searching for /
recreating existing information
11% 14%
We are very inconsistent on how we share and organize materials. Authors tend to just post
materials anywhere.
Our company is so large it's sometimes difficult to find the information I'm looking for. It's
usually faster to ask someone else than to wade through SharePoint to find the information.
Having the commitment to use time and resources to accomplish saving documents and files
in a searchable database.
Finding the right information quickly; there have been several groups
over time that have organized our knowledge systems all a little
differently without good integration with what was already there; it
reminds me of spaghetti code.
Q23. / Q24. On average, how much time do you spend / employee productivity is lost searching for or re-creating information that may already exist within your organization, but you / employees are
unable to locate it? (Select only one. Your best guess is fine.) Respondent: Exec + BDM + ITDM (n=450), I-Workers (n300)
Information is not systematically stored; it is rather fragment which
makes finding the right info quite difficult.
I-WORKER
ITDM
BDM
EXEC

15. Of global workers are finding that the
number of information sources they
must check each day has
increased in the last
five years.
Of global workers are finding the surplus
of data sources and applications is
adding to stress levels
31%
45%
What is impacting the focus on knowledge and content

23. Agenda
Introduction
Knowledge & Content
Viva Topics
SharePoint Syntex
Microsoft Search
Related Opportunities

31. Identification
Improve topics by combining AI and
human expertise.
Automatically build topic pages
Create topic pages and topic cards using
suggested definitions, related content,
relevant conversations, and expertise.
Curate topics
Cultivate knowledge using your experts
and AI to refine topic pages.
Organize knowledge
Curation Discovery
demo

35. Identification
Viva Topics

36. Use AI to reason over your organization’s
data and automatically identify, process, and
organize content.
Automatically identify topics
Recognize common topics across content
and conversations, organize information,
and generate topic pages.
Find related topics
Discover and display complementary topics
and expertise from across sources.
Turn content into knowledge
Curation Discovery
Identification
Viva Topics

57. Curation
Viva Topics

58. Improve topics by combining AI and
human expertise.
Automatically build topic pages
Create topic pages and topic cards using
suggested definitions, related content,
relevant conversations, and expertise.
Curate topics
Cultivate knowledge using your experts
and AI to refine topic pages.
Organize knowledge
Curation Discovery
Identification
Viva Topics

62. Discovery
Viva Topics

63. Automatically display topic cards across
Microsoft 365 apps to discover knowledge in
the context of your work.
Let knowledge find you
Show topic highlights and display topic
cards in any Microsoft 365 app.
Find topics anywhere
Give people the knowledge they need
anytime, anywhere by using Search to
discover topics.
Make knowledge easy
to discover
Curation Discovery
Identification
Viva Topics

79. harness knowledge and expertise
Introducing Microsoft Viva Topics for Leaders
https://youtu.be/78IwP636Dlw
Viva Topics overview: IT perspective
https://youtu.be/49KliDADR_E
Viva Topics overview: Employee perspective
https://youtu.be/8IWE028BJTU
Microsoft Viva partner ecosystem
https://youtu.be/JZeU0Fi-IqY
Case Study: Mott MacDonald
https://youtu.be/K0Y15WKXuws
1 LinkedIn 2019 Workplace Learning Report
2 Knowledge Sharing in a Changing World –
Spiceworks/Ziff Davis, February 2021 (commissioned
by Microsoft)
3 The Right Culture: Not Just About Employee
Satisfaction (gallup.com)

80. Accelerate skilling and growth
What about pricing and licensing?
Microsoft Viva Topics is available as a user-based add-on for Microsoft 365 plans for commercial
customers.
Which users need a license for Microsoft Viva Topics?
Anyone viewing, accessing, or curating topic cards, topic pages, or topic centers or otherwise
benefiting from Microsoft Viva Topics capabilities requires a license.
What languages does Microsoft Viva Topics support?
Available to customers worldwide, Microsoft Viva Topics currently offers English language support.
We plan to add support for Spanish, French, and German in the second half of 2021.
Will Microsoft Viva Topics be available on government cloud? If so, when is GCC release
planned?
Yes, we plan to make Microsoft Viva Topics available for government cloud in the future. Earliest is
second half of 2021

81. Accelerate skilling and growth
Will admins be able to turn Microsoft Viva Topics “On” / “Off” at the tenant level?
Yes, we have a full set of admin controls for the functionality. It will ship “Off” by default so that you
are able to plot the right adoption journey for your organization.
How does Microsoft Viva Topics protect the security and compliance of content?
Microsoft Viva Topics is based on the security and compliance of content enforced across Microsoft
365. For example, access, retention labels, data sovereignty, and information barriers are all
maintained consistently before and after the activation of Viva Topics. In addition, organizations can
apply restrictions on the scope and availability of topic information shared by Microsoft Viva Topics.

82. Yammer Q+A is coming to Viva Topics

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84. Canadian Cloud Summit
Sponsors

85. Canadian Cloud Summit
SPEAKER | AUTHOR | SUPER GOOD LOOKING
KANWAL KHIPPLE, CEO
@kkhipple
bit.ly/linkedinkk
2014 2015

86. Canadian Cloud Summit
https://bit.ly/3uTBuGR