With Viva Learning you can enhance employees’ learning process. All learning resources become available directly through the Viva Learning app in Teams. Microsoft provides 3 data sources (LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and Microsoft 365 Training). You can add 3rd party data sources (for example, Udemy, Pluralsight, edX) or use your existing learning files to create your learning data source. Viva Learning uses the SharePoint site as a data source for this purpose. Let’s go and configure it!
Configuration
The first step is to create a SharePoint site of your choice.
The next step is to configure Viva Learning (Admin rights required). Go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center -> Settings -> Org settings -> Viva Learning. Check the SharePoint option and enter your site’s URL address and click Save.
Viva Learning will configure the site and create a dedicated list (Learning App Content Repository) to manage learning content. When it’s done you can check if the list exists.
Add Learning content
At this point, you can upload your content to the SharePoint site. You can use an existing document library or a new one. Create a folder and upload all learning files to it.
Viva Learning supports the following document types:
Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF
Audio (.m4a)
Video (.mov, .mp4, .avi)
Global SharePoint limits apply there as well (for example, file size, naming, etc.).
In this example, I created a folder TeamsTraining with videos and 1 PowerPoint.
Now you must create a link to that folder. Simply select a folder and generate a link using the Copy link button. This step is very importan. If you do not share the content with users it won’t be accessible for them.
To make the folder visible to Viva Learning create a new entry on the Repository list. Click add and provide a title and the URL to your content created in the previous step.
Click the Save button and that’s it!
Now the hardest part – waiting. The learning content is not visible when you hit the save button. It needs time to process all data and display it in the Viva Learning app. I tested it a few times and it took from 8-16 hours to process the data. Keep this in mind when you plan configuration.
Learn
If you don’t have the Viva Learning app installed use the Teams App store and search for Viva Learning.
When you navigate to your Viva Learning app in Teams you can search for your connected SharePoint content. It will be visible in your organization category.
When you click on a title you are redirected to a details page where you can play a video or read a file.
Advanced configuration
Additiona metadata
Basic configuration allows you to provide only a title for the content. You can extend this by adding additional columns to the Repository list. For example, add a multiline column for content description.
File format
Viva Learning supports:
- Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF – displays as read-only content
- Audio (.m4a) – you can play an audio file
- Video (.mov, .mp4, .avi) – you can watch a video file
Other file formats aren’t supported but you can upload them to the content folder. Viva Learning indexes those files and displays them in the app. If it’s an image file it will be displayed correctly. Files that are not supported by Office 365 won’t be displayed – you can find it and click it but you will get a blank screen. You should check if your learning content contains only supported files.
