Storyline announcements are a way for leaders to share important information with people in their audiences, their followers, and everyone in the organization. Discover, follow, and stay-up-to date with leaders across the company through their storyline announcements.

Image of a Storyline Announcement

By building custom audiences, leaders can notify specific groups of their storyline announcements through email and Microsoft Teams to ensure delivery of essential information.  Even if employees don't have storyline, they'll receive notifications of leadership posts in Teams, email, and Viva Engage.

This capability requires the Viva Suite license. Learn more about licensing here.

Create and post a storyline announcement 

Leaders, leaders' delegates, delegate managers, and corporate communicators can post announcements. Follow the steps listed below to post an announcement: 

  1. In Viva Engage, start your thread from a storyline, home, or storylines feed.

  2. Ensure My storyline is selected in the Add people field.Interface for adding people to your storyline post in Viva Engage

  3. Select the megaphone icon and verify the announcement details from the information bar that will appear below.Image of the informational bar below a storyline announcement in Viva Engage

  4. Confirm that the specified audience is the correct one to notify.

    • To update settings such as recipients and notification channels for your audience, select Change notification settings. For more details, see Manage storyline announcements settings below.Image of the interface for changing your storyline announcement settings in Viva Engage

  5. Select Post to publish.

Manage storyline announcements settings

Announcements settings allow leaders to specify the notification channels and recipients that are notified when the announcement is shared. To edit and open settings, select Change notification settings from the information bar (pictured above).

  • Leaders with an Audience can only manage the notification channels for their announcement.Image of the storyline announcements setting available to leaders with an Audience in Viva Engage

  • Leaders with an Audience and Entire organization can manage both the audience and the notification channels for their announcement.

    Your administrator must enable the option to send announcements to the entire organization from Viva Engage.

    View of Storyline Announcement settings for Entire Organization

People who follow the leader and have enabled notifications will receive the announcement in the channels they've specified. By default, the announcement is also sent to the Viva Engage inbox.

Storyline announcement notifications and visibility

Once posted, announcements are discoverable by everyone in the organization through the leader’s storyline, home, storylines feed, and in leadership corner. Users will receive announcement notifications based on their relationship to the leader and their license to Viva Engage.

Notification scenarios for each relationship are as follows: 

  • By default, the Recipients selected by the leader in the Storyline announcement settings window (either their Audience or Entire organization) will be notified through their Viva Engage inbox

  • If you’re in the leader’s audience or entire organization and you follow the leader, you’ll be notified through the channels the leader chose and the channels you selected when you followed the leader.

  • If you are only a follower of the leader, you’ll be notified of their announcement through the channels you selected upon following them.

To receive announcement notifications through Outlook and Microsoft Teams, you’ll need a license to the Viva Engage Communities and Communications service plan. Learn more about licensing here.

Frequently asked questions 

Q: How are leaders identified?

A: Engage admins, verified admins, network admins, and corporate communications managers with a license to the Viva Engage Communities and Communication service plan can identify leaders.

Q: How are leader’s audiences configured?

A: Identified leaders and their delegate managers can configure leader’s audiences in the Manage audience interface. Only specified admin (mentioned above) can configure a leader’s audiences to reach the Entire organization. Employees are not involved in audience configuration. 

Q: Who can post storyline announcements?

A: Users identified as leaders in Viva Engage with a configured audience can post announcements. A leader’s delegates and delegate managers can also post announcements on behalf of the leaders they represent.  Viva Engage stores storyline announcements as data in compliance with the policy set by your administrator.

Learn more

Storyline in Viva Engage

Delegation in Viva Engage

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