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Organization insights in Viva Insights

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Organization insights help leaders and managers build high performing teams. Leaders and managers can see key indicators of their organization’s wellbeing, productivity, and team culture, and they can find features and tools to help support their teams.

Subscriptions, roles, and access

To view organization insights:

  • You need to have a Viva Insights subscription (that is, a premium license).
  • To view organization insights for your team (direct and indirect reports), your Insights admin needs to assign you the Group Manager role in Viva Insights. And, you need to have a number of direct and indirect reports that meets or exceeds the minimum group size your Insights admin set.
  • To view organization insights for the entire company, your Insights admin needs to assign you the Insights Business Leader role.

People in your organization also need to have a Viva Insights subscription so they can be measured in organizational insights. These employees are referred to as "measured employees." If you want to see an insight that reflects your entire company, everyone in the company needs to have a Viva Insights subscription.

Insights by role

People with the Insights Business Leader role assigned to them can access organization insights that include every measured employee in their tenant.

People enabled as Group Managers can access organization insights that include people who report to them directly or indirectly. Your Insights admin maintains this reporting hierarchy. If your admin assigned you the Insights Business Leader role and also enabled you as a Group Manager, you can toggle between the two organization insights views.

Data and privacy

Viva Insights commits that no user will discover information about another identified individual that they couldn't already know. This principle applies to every feature in Viva Insights, including organization insights.

For further detail about privacy and organization insights, refer to our privacy information.

Using organization insights

Organization insights are more than just a dashboard—they also provide helpful features to share insights and actions with your organization. Here's what you might see when you open your Viva Insights app:

Screenshot that shows the organization insights section.

Let's take a look at how to use these features:

  1. Scope information

    At the top-left of any page or section with organization insights, an indicator shows how many people the insights are measuring.

    The measured group reflects people who:

    • Are in your reporting hierarchy, based on the organizational structure that your Insights admin maintains.
    • Have a Viva Insights subscription (that is, a premium license) applied to their account.
    • Employees were active in Outlook or Teams during the past 12 weeks.

    People need to meet all of these criteria to be part of the measured group reflected here—that is, your scope.

    If you're enabled as a Group Manager: On the left, select the dropdown menu to toggle between viewing insights for your organization, or different subgroups within your team. Teams with less than the minimum team size will be colored gray and their insights won't be visible.

    Screenshot that shows the organization insights drilldown for group managers.

    If you have the Insights Business Leader role assigned: You can view insights only for your entire company.

    Screenshot that shows the organization insights drilldown for Insights Business Leaders.

    If you're enabled as a Group Manager and you're an Insights Business Leader: You can use the toggle to view insights either for your team and subgroups, or for the entire company.

  2. Time filter

    You can view insights for the most recent week, 4 weeks, or 12 weeks of available data.

    Screenshot that shows the organization insights time filter.

  3. Benchmark

    Use the benchmark toggle to compare your insights against previous time periods, peer groups, or the company average. Your benchmark options will vary depending on your assigned role and the time filter you selected.

    If you're enabled as a Group Manager: If you selected a 1 week or 4 week filter, you can compare your insights to the prior week or prior 4 weeks for your organization.

    The sample screenshot below shows the Benchmark results (highlighted) for the prior 4 weeks for your organization.

    Screenshot that shows the organization insights prior 4 weeks benchmark.

    Or, you can compare your insights to your company or your selected peers' team, for the same filtered period.

    The screenshot below shows the Benchmark results for your peer's team for the selected time period.

    Screenshot that shows the organization insights benchmark for peer's team.

    If you selected a 12 week time filter, you can only compare results to either your peers' teams or your company, for the same time period.

    The screenshot below shows the Benchmark results for the company.

    Screenshot that shows the organization insights benchmark for entire company.

    If you have the Insights Business Leader role assigned: You can only set 1 week or 4 week prior time periods as your benchmark. If you selected a 12 week time filter, you can't select a 12 week benchmark.

    If you're enabled as a Group Manager and you're an Insights Business Leader: You can select any of the benchmark options described above.

  4. Indicators

    Insight indicators show you your organization’s average for the most recent period available, and how much it has changed from the period prior.

  5. Details

    Insight details is your jumping-off point to explore context about your measured results. When you select Show details, Viva Insights brings you to the insight drill-down page. This page contains information like trend lines, peer comparisons, comparisons across groups within your organization, and distributions.

    Note

    About comparisons across groups: if a team that reports into you doesn't meet the minimum group size set by your Insights admin, then granular data for that team won't be available.

  6. Three-dot menu for sharing

    Sharing is available for most insight cards. You can share an insight in one of two ways:

    • In a Teams chat – When you share through a chat, you'll have the option to send a screenshot of the insight to another person and add a custom message. The chat contains a link, so the recipient can view how the insight looks for their own team. Recipients need to qualify for organization insights to be able to view what you share with them here.

      Screenshot that shows sharing an insight by chat.

    • Through a link – When you share through a link, that link takes the recipient to the same location in Viva Insights. Linking someone doesn't give them access to the same data you can see, but if they also have access to organization insights, they'll see results for their own group.

      Screenshot that shows sharing an insight by link.

Actions

Actions point you to other workflows in Viva Insights that can help support you or your organization to manage a measured behavior. They appear under Recommended actions for your organization.

Here's an example:

Let's say an insight shows people's meeting time has significantly increased. The insight card might contain a button to set up a plan. When you select the button, Viva Insights takes you to the no-meeting day plan to help folks dedicate a full day to their independent work.

Screenshot that shows the organization insights recommended actions section.

Insights per tab

Home

On the Home tab, you'll find key indicators of your organization’s wellbeing, productivity, and team culture, along with features and tools to help support your teams.

Specifically, you'll find an insight related to one of the following topics each day:

  • Uninterrupted focus hours
  • Manager 1:1 meeting hours
  • Collaboration time
  • Long and large meetings
  • Recurring meetings
  • Meeting hours
  • After-hours collaboration
  • Join on time rate
  • Multitasking hours

All insight cards show the current period's average measure, and also provide the difference against the selected benchmark. Here's an example:

Screenshot that shows the organization insights comparison card.

Wellbeing

On the Wellbeing tab, you'll find key indicators of your organization's capacity for focused work and work-life balance.

Each day, an insight related to one of the following topics appears at the top of your Wellbeing tab:

  • Uninterrupted focus hours
  • After hours collaboration
  • No meeting day impact
  • Daily connected hours
  • Focus time participation
  • Focus time impact
  • No meeting day participation

On the insight card, view the current week's average measure, the difference from the prior period's average, and the measure's 12-week trend.

Screenshot that shows an uninterrupted focus hours organization insight at the top of the Wellbeing tab.

To help your team improve their wellbeing, Viva Insights shows you a recommended action—for example, starting a shared focus plan. Select the action button, like Set up plan, either on the insight card on the Wellbeing tab, or from within the insight details page. Viva Insights then takes you through the feature setup process.

You can also access shared actions in your Take action to improve your wellbeing section. Start a shared focus plan or a shared no-meeting day.

Productivity

On the Productivity tab, you'll find key indicators of your organization’s meeting effectiveness, along with features and tools to help support your teams.

Each day, an insight related to one of the following topics appears at the top of your Productivity tab:

  • Meeting hours
  • Join on time rate
  • Multitasking hours

Tip

To find other insights, use the arrows to the right of the Your organization/Your company dropdown.

On the insight cards, view the current week's calculation result and the change over time for your organization or the group of people who report to you directly or indirectly.

Some insight cards also provide recommended actions. For example, to help your team improve their meeting effectiveness, you can choose to set up a no-meeting day. Select the action button, like Set up plan, either on the insight card on the Productivity tab, or from within the insight details page. Viva Insights then takes you through the feature setup process.

Screenshot that shows a meeting hours organization insight at the top of the Productivity tab.

Teamwork

You’ll see a Teamwork insights for your organization section at the top of your Teamwork tab. Each day, you’ll receive an insight about internal network size across your organization or company.

Show details

If you want to dive deeper into an insight, select Show details on the insight card. You'll arrive at a report page, which gives you more information about the metric that your insight's based on.

Screenshot that shows the L2 report page in the Viva Insights app.

Here's what you can do on each report page:

Weekly averages

Your organization or company

Depending on the metric, view an average count, hours, rate, or size here. For example, if you were viewing information about uninterrupted focus hours, you'd see how many hours on average people in your organization kept for focus time without interruptions every week.

This number includes everyone in your reporting hierarchy or your company, depending on how your scope toggle is set.

Peer organizations

View this metric's average for peer organizations—that is, groups near your own group in your company's reporting hierarchy. Read more about peer organizations in Helpful terms.

Higher or lower than previous weeks

Below the weekly averages for your organization and peer organizations, find out whether this average is higher or lower than the week before last.

Suggested actions

The report suggests an action related to the metric you're viewing. Let's say you were viewing details for Long and large meeting hours. The report might suggest starting a no-meeting day with your team to block out days for individual work.

To get started, select the button, like Set up plan. Viva Insights then guides you through a setup process in the Viva Insights app.

You can also copy a link to the insight or share through a Teams chat here.

Trend graph

Learn how your selected metric averages have changed over time. View a four-month distribution of averages for:

  • Your whole organization (that is, your company).
  • Peer organizations.
  • Groups within your organization (that is, different reporting hierarchies within your company).

When you first open the report page, only three lines load on the trend graph: Your whole organization, Peer organizations, and the reporting hierarchy you're part of (for example, Emily Braun's organization).

To add more organizations to your trend graph, select the eye icon under Show trend. The trend graph only supports 20 organizations. To protect individual privacy, we don't show organizational insights if your organization is smaller than the minimum group size.

You can sort by any of the headers in the Groups within your organization table. For example, to sort by the number of people who were active on Teams or Outlook for that week, select the Active count header.

Snapshot from last week

View an insight about employees related to this report's metric. Let's say you're viewing the Long and large meeting hours report page. Through this snapshot, you might learn that 80% of employees spend more than half of their meeting time in expensive meetings.

Percentage of your organization

See a distribution of employees related to this report's metric. For example, on Uninterrupted focus hours report page, find out what percentage of employees in your organization get 0-10, 10-20, 20-40, and 40 or more uninterrupted focus hours per week.

How it's calculated and Why it matters

Learn how Viva Insights calculates the metric this report focuses on, and why it's important to pay attention to this metric. For a list of metrics related to organization insights, jump to Metric definitions.

Browse insights about other metrics related to the one you're viewing on this page. If you're viewing Long and large meeting hours, you might find Join on time rate, Multitasking hours, or Recurring meeting hours here. Use the arrows in this section's top-right to scroll through all related insights.

Helpful terms

  • Current period – Unless otherwise stated, most insights are showing the result for the most recent period—that usually means the most recent complete week of data. A few insights use a four-week or rolling four-week window instead, to smooth normal variability and make it easier to understand the insight. If an insight uses something other than the most recent week for the current period, you will see it called out on the insight card.

  • Employees – Organization insights provide measures for groups of employees, and are meant to capture what typical workday activity looks like for those employees. To avoid skewing the averages by including people who are not at work during the week (for example, they are on holiday or out sick), organization insights only measure people who have some activity in Outlook or Teams during the week.

  • Organization breakdown – The groups displayed in the organization breakdown are based on your reporting hierarchy, which your Insights admin maintains. Each group includes people who report directly or indirectly to a person who reports to you. The insights represent the activity of the group, not just that person who reports to you, even though their name is used to label the group.

    Insight Business Leaders who are viewing the insights for the entire company will see the organization breakdown by organizations reporting to top-layer leaders.

  • Peer organization – Peer organization includes groups near your own group in the reporting hierarchy. If available, the peer organization includes people who report directly or indirectly up to your manager, but not up to you. If there aren't any groups like this, or they don’t meet the minimum group size, the peer organization includes people who report directly or indirectly up to your skip-level manager but not up to you. If there’s not enough people who meet that definition either, you won't see peer organization insights.

    Insights Business Leaders who are viewing insights for the entire company will also not see peer organization insights.

  • Prior period – The prior period is the period immediately before the most recent period – usually the week before the most recent completed week.

  • Reporting hierarchy – Your Insights administrator manages the reporting hierarchy. This hierarchy identifies reporting relationships throughout the company: people who are managers, and the people who report to them. The reporting hierarchy might be sourced from Microsoft Entra ID or from a manual upload from your company’s HR information system. Viva Insights uses this information to identify people in your organization, your peer organization, and any organizations that might report up to you.

  • Your organization – If the insight scope selector says Your organization, this group includes everyone who reports to you directly or indirectly. This group is based on your organization’s reporting hierarchy, your Insights administrator manages. If the insights scope selector says [Your company name], this group includes everyone who has been set up as part of the premium insights group by your Insights administrator.

Metric definitions

The following table lists metrics related to organization insights. You can also access metric definitions while you're using Viva Insights—just select the (i) icon next to the organization insight card or organization insight page title.

Refer to Metric definitions for all Viva Insights metric definitions.

Metric How it’s calculated
After-hours collaboration hours After-hours collaboration measures how much time per week a person spends in meetings, emails, Teams chats, and Teams calls outside of their configured working hours.
Uninterrupted focus hours Uninterrupted focus hours measures blocks of time longer than an hour where the person is not in a meeting or Teams call or sending email or Teams chats.
Daily connected hours Daily connected hours measures time in 30-minute blocks in a day where the person had any activity where they took a meeting or Teams call or sent an email or Teams chat.
Collaboration hours Collaboration hours measures the total time per week a person spends in meetings, emails, Teams chats, and Teams calls.
Meeting hours Meeting hours measures the total time per week a person spends in meetings based on accepted meetings on their Outlook calendar and excluding calendar items that are likely non-meetings, such as appointments.
Join on time rate Join on time rate measures the percentage of Teams meetings where the person joined early or within five minutes of the meeting’s scheduled start time.
Recurring meeting hours Recurring meeting hours measures the total time per week a person spends in recurring meetings based on accepted meetings on their Outlook calendar and excluding calendar items that are likely non-meetings, such as appointments.
Large and long meeting hours Large and long meeting hours measures the total time per week a person spends in meetings that are longer than an hour or have more than 8 attendees.
Multitasking hours Multitasking hours measures how much time per week a person spends in emails and chats that overlap with their meetings and Teams calls.
Manager 1:1 meeting hours Manager 1:1 meeting hours measures how much time a person spends in meetings with just themselves and their direct manager. This is calculated based on a weekly average.
Internal network size Internal network size measures the number of colleagues connected to the person. Connections are based on at least two interactions in the prior four-week period, excluding very large and long interactions.
Manager co-attendance rate Manager co-attendance rate measures what percentage of meeting hours are attended by both the person and the person’s direct manager.