Viva Learning: Get an Exclusive Sneak Peek with Asif Rehmani

• Do you know what Microsoft Viva Learning is?
• Will it replace the need for LMS and other learning management systems in your organization?
• Is it free or is there a cost to implement Viva Learning?

All good questions.

Unfortunately, most people don't have access to Viva Learning (yet) so it's not only hard to answer these questions, but it’s difficult to really understand exactly what Viva Learning will provide and what information is relevant to share with your customers.

The good news is that Asif Rehmani, Microsoft MVP and learning expert has access to Viva Learning and is excited to give you a sneak peek at this special session - exclusively for Microsoft partners, consultants and solution providers.

In this free 45-min session, Asif will show you what Viva Learning (Preview) looks like currently and will provide some clarity around all your unanswered questions!

Questions and Answers

The questions below were asked by attendees of the Viva Learning webinar that I conducted on June 29th, 2021.

1. Does Viva Learning connect to the Microsoft 365 Learning Pathway site?

Viva Learning is more of a shell, a container, in which you can pull in any content. Microsoft 365 learning pathways is not yet one of the content sources that Microsoft supports but they have mentioned that they will support it in the future.

2. Will it also work on the mobile version of Teams?

Yes. Once Viva Learning is generally available, it will support mobile version of Teams as well.

3. In setup, can you choose what providers show up here?

That's correct. When you are setting up Viva Learning, you click on the checkboxes of the content sources, the providers, that you want to show within the Viva Learning interface.

4. Will learning content that is created internally also show up in Viva Learning?

Yes. Once Viva Learning is available for production environments, it will support showing learning content that is produced internally such as videos, Word/Excel/PowerPoint documents, PDF, etc

5. Is the learning displayed here learning based on your subscription to each provider like LinkedIn learning or is some of the training content provided free with Viva Learning?

For all the content providers that Microsoft supports, they provide some varying degree of free content which shows up when you enable them as a content source in the Viva Learning configuration. And then if you want to get access to the premium content, you would need to have an organizational subscription with that content provider.

6. We have an app that is on Teams app store. Would like to know what features will Viva API have?

Microsoft has committed to releasing APIs for Viva Learning in fall of 2021 timeframe.

7. Can you use the SharePoint method to put a link to an external content provider? For example a 3rd party learning provider that has web based content.

I believe the SharePoint method lets you link to content that's only hosted in SharePoint but that can change in the future.

8. Does VisualSP require allowing custom scripts on sites? If so, is there any way to use it without this? Many organizations have this turned off on sites by default for various governance reasons.

VisualSP has been deployed by many of our customers in one of two ways:

1. As a custom action which requires allowing custom scripts on sites
2. Using the VisualSP browser extension

The second option is the one that we would recommend for organizations that have the custom scripts turned off.

9. Can you sign in to each learning source with different credentials, or is authentication done at the MS Teams level?

This is still an unknown. Currently, the only credential management that is exposed is the LinkedIn credentials.

10. How is connection, insights and others connected to MS Teams and SharePoint?

All Viva branded apps are Microsoft Teams apps that appear on the left rail of Teams. Some of the functionality of these apps can also be accessed through tabs within channels and chats/conversations. (read more on this blog)

11. How does licensing work? Does my organization need to purchase enterprise licenses for all users from each learning provider?

That is my current understanding. The organization would have to purchase the enterprise / organizational license for each learning provider that they want to show the learning from.

12. Wondering if "Trending" of content in Viva Learning can be controlled/removed per user/group?

To my knowledge, the Trending row in Viva Learning cannot be removed.

13. Does Viva Learning show your course or curriculum progress in more detail, without LMS integration? Does it show your team members' progress?

Viva Learning does not have detailed analytics. It will rely on LMS integration to do that. Viva Learning will only show the things that you have recommended to others and if they have started on those recommendations or completed them or not.

14. How is search content indexed and how is it stored? Can I add custom learning sources? For example, if I search for MIP, will I get all courses that contain learning on Microsoft Information Protection?

There does not seem to be any indication that we will be able to control the search index at all.

15. Do any of the resources available through Viva Learning (whether LinkedIn Learning, Pluralsight, or otherwise) offer customization options for training or content? Or is everything available canned content?

Anything that's coming from those providers will be canned content. The only thing that you can control is the content that's coming from your organization.

16. Can you filter the courses based on your role?

Currently there is no indication that this functionality will be possible.

17. Is there a cost associated with provisioning the Viva Learning module with just the default M365 Training connectors? Like Pathways and the Microsoft Training.

Microsoft has not officially announced pricing but I would bet that a free version will be available for Viva Learning that will have default Microsoft products training as well as some LinkedIn learning

18. Is there a cost for sources such as LinkedIn Learning? (Will there be free and pay learning sources and a way to manage costs?)

Yes there will be a cost for most of the content from third party sources such as LinkedIn Learning. Your organization will need to have a license to be able to show that content through Viva Learning.

19. Will LinkedIn Learning HUB have more LMS features like tracking learning for individuals or groups (HUB I believe is an upcoming addition to LinkedIn Learning- just wondering if you knew how that would interact a Viva)?

The LinkedIn learning hub is supposed to be a learning experience platform (LXP) that will be released at some point in the future.

Microsoft has not come out and said that it will allow LinkedIn learning hub to integrate with Viva Learning but that seems to be a very obvious direction that they will take. So yes, I would bet that it will happen in the future.

20. How does VisualSP work with Viva Learning?

VisualSP and Viva Learning will work together.

Viva Learning will allow employees to learn and develop skills while inside Teams.

VisualSP will help employees by providing them access to any information (learning, governance, announcements, policies, etc.) they need in context of their own environment to help them perform their job.

21. Is there a cost for sources such as LinkedIn Learning? (Will there be free and pay learning sources and a way to manage costs?)

Yes there will be a cost for third party sources such as LinkedIn Learning. Your organization will need to have a license to premium content to be able to show that content through Viva Learning.

22. Viva Learning is the portal to display LinkedIn Learning and company's LMS system?

Viva Learning lets you display whatever you want including content from your company's LMS and LinkedIn learning and more.

23. My LinkedIn account is a personal account but I sign in to Teams with my work account. How can it customize the training for me if it shows me logged in as my work account? And how can I show the training as completed on my personal account?

Unfortunately I don't believe there's any integration with personal and business LinkedIn accounts - at least not yet. The story is still developing.

24. Can you make curated training lists for users like information needed for new hires?

Yes, you should be able to have all of your learning including in the onboarding learning presented in Viva Learning. However, it will all be in just one row of Viva Learning. The way I understand it, segmenting out specific things just for new hires is something that currently seems to not be supported, but things can change by the time this gets to production

25. Will MS Viva Learning replace or complement Moodle or Google Classroom?

Viva Learning will complement them.

26. Can you draw Learning Pathways into Viva Learning? It has redundant content...wouldn't it produce duplicate entries in Viva Learning if it was?

You could just have one row of content that shows learning pathways. Currently there is another row that is there by default called Microsoft 365 training. you could replace that row of information with just learning pathways content so it's not redundant.

27. You can use SharePoint to host training content for Viva Learning, but is there any way to build courses (different modules/questions etc) like a LMS or is it just basically a pane to view training of different sources plus some more?

From what it seems like so far, there is no way to create a course and make it available within Viva Learning. It will be specific artifacts like office documents, videos and PDF's that you can make available.

28. Viva does not track progress to any third-party courses more than the "recently viewed something column"? I guess that's on the individual party's site then?

Correct. Tracking progress will be the responsibility of the LMS. showing the tracking off some of the assignments should be possible in Viva Learning from what it seems so far.

29. Can assignments be tracked in Viva? or only where you assigned it from?

Assignments will be able to be tracked in Viva Learning but not assigned from Viva Learning. And for all this to happen, integration must exist with the proper elements.

30. Can you use the SharePoint method to put a link to an external content provider? For example a 3rd party learning provider that has web-based content.

No. The content has to be based inside SharePoint.