Why Viva Connections should be your next intranet

Why Viva Connections should be your next intranet

For many organizations, the intranet has long been an essential—but often underwhelming—component of the digital workplace. Classic SharePoint intranets, while functional, tend to suffer from inconsistent design, static content, and low user engagement. In the high-performance workplace era, that’s no longer enough.

Microsoft Viva Connections reimagines the intranet as a modern, personalized, and extensible experience. It brings together the best of SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Graph to deliver a centralized hub for news, resources, and employee engagement—directly within the flow of work.

At SoftwareOne, we’re helping customers shift from disconnected communication portals to intelligent, employee-centric digital experiences. Read on to learn why Viva Connections is a compelling evolution of the intranet—and how we help you get it right from the start.

The problem with traditional intranets

Today’s employees are inundated with information, yet often struggle to find the resources that matter most. Traditional intranets rarely solve this problem. Instead, they present:

• Disconnected experiences that require users to leave their daily tools
• Static content that quickly becomes outdated
• Poor mobile usability and inconsistent branding
• Limited personalization or role-based targeting
• Ineffective search and navigation

Even when built on SharePoint, these experiences often fail to meet users where they work. The result is low adoption, fragmented communication, and underutilized investments in content and collaboration.

Viva Connections: A new approach to the intranet

Viva Connections is Microsoft’s solution to this challenge. It brings your SharePoint intranet into the Microsoft Teams environment—providing a seamless, modern, and engaging entry point to the digital workplace.

Here’s what makes Viva Connections a game-changer:

Integrated user experience

Viva Connections appears as a branded app in Microsoft Teams—desktop, web, and mobile—ensuring employees have one-click access to the tools, content, and communications that matter most.

Personalized and targeted content

Using audience targeting, users can tailor news, links, and dashboard components based on role, department, geography, or project team—improving relevance and reducing noise.

AI-Ready architecture

Because it builds on SharePoint and integrates with Microsoft Graph, Viva Connections serves as a natural knowledge source for Microsoft 365 Copilot. A well-structured Connections experience strengthens Copilot’s ability to surface relevant insights.

Modular and extensible

The Viva Connections dashboard supports adaptive cards, allowing integration with Power Apps, Viva modules (like Engage, Learning, and Amplify), and third-party tools—turning the intranet into an action hub, not just an information page.

Why SoftwareOne

Implementing Viva Connections requires more than technical configuration. It demands thoughtful design, a strong information architecture, and a strategy to drive adoption and governance. That’s where SoftwareOne comes in.

Strategy and design

We work with your communications, IT, and HR stakeholders to co-create an intranet experience that reflects your organizational culture and business goals.

Our deliverables include:

• Global navigation strategy aligned to your site structure
• Dashboard design using adaptive cards and app integrations
• Branding and theming for consistency and engagement
• Governance models for publishing and access
• We don’t just deploy—we design for long-term success.

Integration and evolution

Viva Connections is most powerful when it’s connected to the rest of the Viva suite and other Microsoft 365 capabilities. We help you plan your Viva roadmap, integrating:

• Viva Amplify for campaign publishing
• Viva Engage for community and leadership engagement
• Viva Learning for just-in-time training access
• Power Platform for process automation and reporting

This turns your intranet into a platform for productivity, communication, and culture-building.

Copilot readiness

A modern intranet isn’t just for people anymore—it’s for AI, too. We ensure that the content surfaced through Viva Connections is structured, secure, and tagged in a way that supports Copilot scenarios.

That includes:

• Optimizing modern pages for readability and accessibility
• Aligning metadata and taxonomy for improved search
• Securing permissions to support least-privilege access
• Mapping use cases that involve Copilot surfacing Viva content

The business value

Organizations that adopt Viva Connections as their intranet experience see measurable benefits, including:

• Higher intranet engagement through Teams integration
• More relevant content delivered to the right audiences
• Faster onboarding and access to knowledge
• Enhanced employee experience across mobile and desktop
• Stronger foundations for AI, analytics, and communication governance

By meeting employees where they work—and giving them the content they need when they need it—Viva Connections helps drive productivity, culture, and satisfaction.