This article describes the Viva Engage Conversations and Viva Engage Highlights web parts that you can use to enhance collaboration on your modern SharePoint in Microsoft 365 page.
The Viva Engage Conversations web part has the latest Viva Engage experiences, including the ability to start a conversation with any type of post (questions, polls, praise) and mark best answers directly from SharePoint.
When you add conversations to internal sites like leadership, IT, HR, or communities, you help employees engage by asking questions, getting answers, and sharing best practices with each other.
What's new in the latest Conversations web part experience?
The new Conversations web part features multiple conversation types and a more interactive user experience including:
Updated look – The web part supports rich previews for media and visual treatment for questions, praise, and polls.
Viva Engage publisher functionality – When users create conversations, users have the following new features:
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Create any type of Viva Engage post directly from SharePoint – such as questions, polls, praise.
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Upload images and files into new conversations and replies directly from SharePoint.
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Use rich text in messages created from SharePoint.
Viva Engage administrator actions – Community administrators can use features like Close Conversation, Pin a Conversation, and Mark Best Answer to a Question.
Improved, Relevant Home feed – Users can start a conversation in any community when configured to this mode.
Interactive web part length - The new experience is visually compelling and interactive. To bring in this rich Viva Engage conversation experience, the length of conversations and height of the web part will most likely increase on the page. Site administrators can adjust the height of the web part to show as few as 2 conversations and a maximum of 12 conversations.
Conversations web part (the new Viva Engage experience)
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Highlights experience |
Highlights Classic experience |
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Decide which web part to use
Here's how to choose which to use:
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When to use it |
What it does |
Limitations |
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Viva Engage Conversations web part Use this when you want users to participate in Viva Engage conversations without leaving your SharePoint page. This experience brings the latest capabilities of Viva Engage to SharePoint. |
For page users:
Participants can use conversation capabilities like closing conversations and marking best answers from SharePoint, depending on permissions. For page authors:
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Viva Engage Highlights web part Use this if it's the only Viva Engage web part available to you, or if you want to provide a quick overview of active conversations and a targeted portal to specific groups or conversations in Viva Engage. |
For page users:
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Highlights web part - Classic mode Note: Starting January 31, 2025, Microsoft will retire and no longer support the classic Highlights web part. To avoid a broken feed experience, we recommend that you migrate to the Viva Engage Conversations web part as soon as possible. Use this only if the Viva Engage Conversations web part isn't available and you want users to be able to participate in Viva Engage conversations without leaving SharePoint. |
For page users:
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Add a Viva Engage Conversations web part to a SharePoint modern page
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If you're not in edit mode already, select Edit at the top of the page. Find the Toolbox (
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Select See all web parts, then select or drag-and-drop Conversations from the list of web parts.
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In Select conversation source, select one of the following:
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Community: Displays the most recent conversations posted in the selected group.
Note: If the selected community has a pinned conversation, the web part displays the maximum number of conversations plus the pinned conversation at the top.
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Leaders: Displays the most recent conversations that show up for the user in Viva Engage when they select the Leaders tab.
Notes:
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This mode does not display the Viva Engage publisher to start a new conversation.
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Users who do not have a premium license will instead see the Home feed.
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User: Displays the most recent conversations that this user has participated in.
Note: This mode does not display the Viva Engage publisher to start a new conversation
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Topic: Displays the most recent conversations tagged with this topic.
Note: This mode does not display the Viva Engage publisher to start a new conversation.
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Feed: Displays the most recent conversations that show up for the user in Viva Engage when they select the Home button.
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In Search for a source, enter the name of the group, user, or topic.
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In Number of conversations to show, select 4, 6, or 8, based on how much room you want this web part to take up on your page.
After you've published the page, users can reply and follow the conversation from within your page.
Add a Viva Engage Highlights web part to a SharePoint modern page
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If you're not in edit mode already, click Edit at the top right of the page. Find the Toolbox (
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Select See all web parts, then select or drag-and-drop Highlights from the list of web parts.
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If you're adding the Viva Engage web part to a site that has an associated Viva Engage community or group, the Viva Engage group will be detected and added automatically. Otherwise, click Add a Group and use the search bar to find a group.
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Select one of the following conversation options:
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Top Conversations: The group's most engaging conversations.
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Latest Conversations: The group's most recent conversations that are new to the reader.
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Only conversations you choose: This option requires you to go to Viva Engage to get the URLs for up to four conversations you want to display.
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After you've published your page, users can:
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Create a new message in the group by selecting Post to Viva Engage.
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Select the post to go to it in the Viva Engage community or group.
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Select View more at the top of the web part to go to all of the posts in that Viva Engage community or group.
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Like the post.
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Add a comment below the post. Comments show up only on the page; they're not added to the Viva Engage conversation.
FAQ
Q: Can Viva Engage external users use the Yammer web part?
A: No. External users of any type will see an error message regardless of whether or not they are eligible to see the group in Viva Engage.
Known Limitations with the Conversations web part
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On a Mac or iOS device, if you're using the Safari browser or the SharePoint iOS mobile app, when you look at a message that should have an image, you'll see Sorry there is a problem with this file.
To work around this issue and see the image:
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From Safari, in the Safari Settings page, disable Prevent Cross-Site Tracking. This allows images to be shown in the SharePoint web part.
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From the SharePoint iOS app, in the SharePoint in Microsoft 365 pages, tap the error, and the image will open in the Viva Engage app (if it is installed on your device, or in the browser).
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The Viva Engage Conversations web parts only work when the SharePoint site uses the original domain name, for example contoso.onmicrosoft.com. Conversation web parts aren't supported when the SharePoint site uses a vanity domain name.
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Custom themes – The updated conversations web part supports all the in-box themes. Light themes show conversations on a white card background and dark themes show conversations on a grey card background. Some custom themes may experience issues due to the colors used. If your organization is experiencing issues with a custom theme, contact Microsoft Support.
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While the Conversations web part with the new Viva Engage experience is being updated across networks, there is a known issue with the older Conversations web part experience. When you add the Conversations web part (if your network has not yet been upgraded to the new experience), the web part will show an error even after you finish configuring it. As a workaround, you can save the configuration and refresh the page to see the configured feed.
Known Limitations with the Highlights web part
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The Viva Engage Highlights web parts only work when the SharePoint site uses the original domain name, for example contoso.onmicrosoft.com, and are not supported when the SharePoint site uses a vanity domain name.
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The Viva Engage Highlights web part does not include the latest experiences from the new Viva Engage. For example:
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You cannot create questions, polls, praise from the Highlights web part.
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You cannot upload images and files into new conversations and replies from the Highlights web part.
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You cannot use Viva Engage conversation-management actions: Close Conversation and Mark Best Answer to a Question.
For these latest capabilities, we recommend using the Viva Engage Viva Conversations web part.
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