Manage a community in Viva Engage

If you need to add large groups of members, manage your community's membership as a group in Microsoft Entra ID. Learn more about Viva Engage and Microsoft 365 groups. Admins may add members with a CSV file (see the following section). 

1. On the home page of the community, select the + icon in the Members tile.

2. Search for the people you want to add by typing their name in the search box.

3. Select the More icon next to the person’s name and choose an option to add or remove the person. 
   
   When you add or remove a member, the community content doesn't change. New members get access to all content (including previous posts) in the community.
   
   Former members of a private community can no longer access that community's content, except for their old posts through the All Activity feed and notifications. Their posts remain in the community feed.

Because Viva Engage is Microsoft 365 connected, community admins can add large numbers of new community members at once with a CSV file. Members must already belong to the network and therefore, have a Microsoft 365 Entra ID account. The CSV can include Azure AD B2B guests, provided they're already in the network. Use the Principal Name for the email address of a B2B guest.

You can also export a list of members to a CSV file to serve as a contact sheet or to verify your membership. For details, see Bulk download members of a group in Microsoft Entra ID.

Each file can contain a maximum of 20,000 email addresses. 

Your cover photo illustrates your community's identity and purpose, or it can publicize a community event. Use a simple, recognizable image that reads well on mobile devices. Community admins can upload a photo for their community on the web or in the mobile app. Cover images must be 20 MB or less, 1400 x 524 or 700 x 262 pixels, and use PNG, JPEG, or non-animated GIF format.

For the community icon or logo, use a square image. Uploaded images resize to 72 x 72 pixels. 

Community admins can assign more community admins. Communities can have up to 100 admins. 

Viva Engage verified admins can also assign community admins. A Viva Engage network admin can assign community admins for a public community. To assign a community admin for a private community, the new admin must belong to that community.

1. In the Members tile, select the number next to the word Members to open up the member panel.

2. Search for a person by name or email.

3. Select the More <glyph library="fluent" name="more" /> icon next to the person’s name, and choose Make admin.

   Admins have a star next to their icon that appears under Members. Community admins are listed in the About page members pane.

As a community admin, you monitor the conversations and concerns in your community.

• To ensure that no one’s question has been overlooked, in the community feed select the filter Questions with no response to quickly find any unaddressed questions.​​​​​​​

• To provide an official response or confirm accurate answers, filter by Questions with no best answer and mark the best answer.

If you're the community admin for a private community, you'll get a notification in Viva Engage each time someone requests membership in your community.

• To receive an email notification for each request, go to your email notification preferences and select Someone requests to join a private community I administer. For steps, see Enable or disable email and phone notifications.

A well-established Viva Engage community can have relationships with other communities of related topics. These relationships give users a chance to discover more communities and resources. For example, a community with a broad-based subject, such as a popular spreadsheet program, can have related communities for subjects such as pivot tables, complex math, use of Copilot prompts in datasheets, and so on.

To find related communities, go to the About tab under the banner image for the current community. The Related communities pane appears at the bottom of the page. Communities might not have any related communities on their list.

Members and admins can add communities to the Related list. Make sure a Related community selection makes sense for the context of both communities. Select Add a related community in the leftmost box. Begin entering a name or title to filter for similar community names or select from the list. Close when you're finished, and Viva Engage adds the community to the list. To remove or add more related communities, select Edit.