Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive

MC1218423 - Microsoft Teams: Viva Engage communities in Teams

Message ID

MC1218423

View in Message Center

Service

Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Viva

Published

Jan 16, 2026

Tag

New feature
User impact
Admin impact

Roadmap ID

513274

View in M365 Roadmap

Platforms

Android
Desktop
iOS
Mac
Web

Summary

Viva Engage communities will be integrated into Microsoft Teams by March-April 2026, enabling asynchronous conversations and leadership engagement within Teams. Features include synced memberships, notifications, rich interactions, and admin controls. The feature is ON by default for all tenants and requires no extra license.

More information

Introduction

We’re introducing Viva Engage communities in Microsoft Teams to make it easier for employees to connect, share, and learn across your organization. This new experience brings discoverable, asynchronous conversations and leadership engagement into Teams—helping employees explore ideas and perspectives beyond project-based collaboration.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 513274.

When this will happen

  • General Availability (Worldwide): March 2026 to April 2026

How this affects your organization

Who is affected: All Microsoft Teams users with access to Viva Engage.

What will happen:

  • This feature is available to all Microsoft Teams customers with a standard Microsoft 365 and Teams license and access to Viva Engage. No additional Teams license is required.
  • Communities will appear in Teams navigation:
    • Unified view: New section in the Chat app.
    • Split view: New section in the Chats and Channels app.
  • Existing Viva Engage community memberships will sync into Teams.
  • Favorited communities in Engage will appear in Teams favorites.
  • Notifications for announcements and mentions will surface in Teams Activity feed and deep link to the new experience.
  • Rich engagement features include:
    • Posting discussions, questions, praise, polls, and announcements (admins only).
    • Reactions, delegated posting (requires setup in Viva Engage), and scoped search.
    • Event participation: ask questions, upvote, view live or replay.
  • Admins can manage community settings, membership, and roles directly in Teams.
  • Default setting: ON for all tenants.

What you can do to prepare

  • No immediate action required unless you want to disable this feature.
  • To turn off communities in Teams:
    • Go to Teams admin center > Viva Engage settings > Toggle OFF.
  • Ensure prerequisites:
    • Viva Engage IPs and URLs are not blocked.
    • Sign-ins for Viva Engage are enabled in Microsoft Entra ID.
    • Users have Microsoft 365 and Teams licenses.
  • Consider sharing best practices and customization options with users.
  • Coordinate with Viva Engage admins for internal change communications.

Learn more:  

Compliance considerations

No compliance considerations identified. Review as appropriate for your organization.