Create/Design Adaptive Cards Extensions using OOTB Viva Connections In Teams and SharePoint Site

Adaptive Cards Extensions (ACEs) are new way of displaying the information in a platform-agnostic. These cards are sourced by JSON and can be designed using OOTB or custom.

Microsoft Viva Connections

• Viva connection experience is deployed and access in Microsoft Teams.
• It is an employee experience app in Microsoft Teams that brings relevant news, conversations, resources in one place for every employee.

Setup Viva connections in the M365 admin center

• To add the Adaptive Cards to Viva dashboards webpart, you need set the Viva connection from admin center or PowerShell Scripts.
• Navigate to https://admin.microsoft.com , select 'Setup and select 'Viva Connections'   

 

A. Creating a Connections experience: It creates a standalone, out-of-the-box Connections experience as an app in Teams without the need for an existing intranet portal. A special site container will be created where the dashboard, resources, and overall Viva home experience are hosted and sourced from. Owners can then begin adding their own content. An intranet portal can be added at any time and designated as a home site. 

B. Build from an existing intranet portal: This option is ideal for organizations that already have a SharePoint communications site and would like to use their own content, or would like to add an intranet portal that includes Connections components that can easily be extended to the Web. This option creates a new Connections experience and automatically designates the communications site as a home site (intranet portal) that displays navigational elements, and shares permissions.

Create a Connections Experience

Build from an existing intranet portal to set a Home site

Set permissions

If your home site is part of a multi-geo tenant outside of the main geo you will need to manage your permissions in the SharePoint Admin Center.

Designate Audience

Visitors are set to Everyone in the company except external users by default.

Decide the Order

If your organization has multiple experiences, some audiences may belong to more than one. By setting an order for each experience, you can determine the priority in which experiences will be seen first.

Create and configure the Dashboard in Teams

• We can extend our Viva Connections dashboard with out-of-the-box web parts, custom SPFx web parts, extensions, and now with Adaptive Card Extension, etc.
• Navigate to the Viva Connections app in Teams.

• Select Frontline workers and continue

Adding an Adaptive Cards to Dashboard

• Add Approvals, Top News, Shifts, Assigned Tasks, Card Designer..etc Adaptive cards.
• Note: The above cards can be created from Teams or SharePoint site.
• Edit the Home or any page and add the Dashboard of Viva connections which will display all of you cards

Enable the experience

• Enable each Viva connection experience to make it visible to audiences in Microsoft Teams.
• Select ‘Connection Experience’ and enable it from the Edit Status. 

Pin the Viva Connections app in Teams

The Viva Connections app only needs to be pinned to Teams once after the creation of your first experience, unless you are pinning by policy.

• Navigate to Teams admin center: https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/ > Teams apps > Setup policies.
• Select Global (Org-wide default) which is default > Scroll down to Pinned apps.
• Select + Add apps.