Is Microsoft Viva Connections the Company Intranet Worth Having?

Microsoft Viva Connections is Microsoft's answer to the modern company intranet, designed to surface organizational news, resources, and tasks directly within Microsoft Teams. But is it truly worth the investment, or does a traditional SharePoint intranet still serve enterprises better? After deploying Viva Connections for organizations ranging from 500 to 50,000+ employees, our team at EPC Group has a clear perspective on where it excels and where it falls short.

What Exactly Is Viva Connections?

Viva Connections is a personalized gateway built on SharePoint that appears as a branded app within Microsoft Teams. It combines three core components: a Dashboard of interactive adaptive cards, a Feed aggregating news from SharePoint and Viva Engage, and Resources providing quick links to important organizational sites and tools. Unlike a standalone intranet that requires employees to open a browser and navigate to a URL, Viva Connections meets people where they already work -- inside Teams.

The key differentiator is context. Viva Connections uses audience targeting and Azure Active Directory attributes to personalize the experience so that a frontline worker in a warehouse sees different dashboard cards, news, and resources than a finance director at headquarters. This level of personalization was previously only achievable through expensive custom intranet development.

Advantages Over a Traditional SharePoint Intranet

Organizations that have invested in SharePoint Online as their intranet platform will find that Viva Connections extends that investment in several important ways:

• Teams-first experience -- Employees no longer need to leave Teams to access company news, policies, or HR tools. This is particularly valuable for organizations where Teams is the primary collaboration hub.
• Mobile-optimized out of the box -- The Viva Connections mobile app provides a native mobile experience for frontline workers, remote employees, and field personnel without requiring custom mobile app development.
• Adaptive cards and integrations -- Dashboard cards can surface data from third-party systems (ServiceNow, Workday, SAP) without requiring employees to switch applications, reducing context-switching and improving productivity.
• Audience targeting -- Content and dashboard cards can be targeted to specific groups based on department, location, role, or custom attributes, ensuring relevance and reducing information overload.
• Lower maintenance overhead -- Because Viva Connections pulls content from existing SharePoint sites and Viva Engage communities, there is no need to maintain a separate intranet content management workflow.

Limitations to Consider

Despite its strengths, Viva Connections is not a replacement for every intranet use case. Based on our implementation experience, here are the areas where organizations should set realistic expectations:

• Design customization is limited -- While you can brand the app with your logo and colors, the layout and overall design flexibility does not match what a custom-built SharePoint intranet or third-party intranet solution (like Unily or Staffbase) can offer.
• Content depth -- Viva Connections is designed as a gateway, not a deep content repository. Employees still need to navigate to underlying SharePoint sites for detailed policy documents, knowledge bases, and departmental resources.
• Dependency on Teams adoption -- If your organization has low Teams adoption, Viva Connections will struggle to gain traction. It is fundamentally a Teams app, and its value is proportional to how much time employees spend in Teams.
• SharePoint home site requirement -- Viva Connections requires a SharePoint home site as its foundation. Organizations that have not invested in a well-structured SharePoint environment will need to build that foundation first.
• Third-party card development -- While Microsoft provides a growing library of adaptive cards, creating custom integrations with line-of-business systems often requires developer resources and familiarity with the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) and Adaptive Card Extensions (ACEs).

Who Should Deploy Viva Connections?

Based on our 29 years of enterprise consulting, Viva Connections delivers the strongest ROI for organizations that meet the following criteria:

• Heavy investment in Microsoft 365 and Teams as the primary collaboration platform
• Large distributed workforce including remote and frontline employees
• Existing SharePoint Online intranet that needs a modernized experience layer
• Desire to reduce the number of standalone employee-facing applications
• Organizations in regulated industries that need consistent, auditable communication channels

Conversely, organizations with small Teams footprints, those heavily invested in competing platforms (Google Workspace, Slack), or those requiring highly customized intranet designs may find that a standalone SharePoint intranet or third-party solution is a better fit.

Viva Connections vs. SharePoint Intranet: When to Use Which

The answer is not always either/or. In most enterprise deployments we architect, Viva Connections and the SharePoint intranet coexist as complementary layers:

• Viva Connections serves as the daily engagement surface -- quick access to tasks, news headlines, approvals, and time-sensitive information within Teams.
• SharePoint Intranet remains the deep content repository -- policy libraries, department sites, project spaces, knowledge bases, and training materials.
• Viva Engage handles social engagement -- communities, Q&A, leadership communications, and employee recognition.

This layered architecture ensures employees have a fast, relevant entry point (Viva Connections) while still having access to comprehensive organizational content (SharePoint) and social interaction (Viva Engage).

How EPC Group Can Help

EPC Group has 29 years of experience designing, building, and optimizing enterprise intranets on the Microsoft platform. Our Viva Connections practice includes:

• Intranet strategy assessment -- We evaluate your current intranet, Teams adoption, and employee experience goals to determine whether Viva Connections is the right fit for your organization.
• SharePoint home site design -- A strong Viva Connections deployment starts with a well-architected SharePoint home site. We design and build the information architecture, navigation, and content strategy that powers Connections.
• Custom adaptive card development -- Our developers create custom ACEs that integrate with your line-of-business systems, bringing actionable data into the Teams experience without requiring employees to switch apps.
• Audience targeting configuration -- We set up granular targeting rules so each employee sees relevant content based on their role, location, department, and seniority level.
• Adoption and training -- We develop communication plans, training materials, and champion programs to ensure employees adopt Viva Connections and realize its full value.

Frequently Asked Questions