Exercise 2, Task 1: Use Viva Engage to create a company-wide announcement

Trey Research is preparing to formally introduce TR-Pulse, a new quarterly communication experience focused on transparency, leadership connection, and employee engagement. Leadership chose Viva Engage as the primary channel for the announcement to encourage two‑way communication, conversation, and visibility rather than a traditional one‑way email blast.

As the company’s Communications Manager, you’re responsible for crafting and publishing the launch announcement in Viva Engage. This message must do more than simply share information—it must set the tone for TR-Pulse as an ongoing, open dialogue between leadership and employees. The announcement should explain the purpose of the program, what employees can expect, and how they can participate, while also inviting early engagement through reactions and comments.

Perform the following steps to complete this task:

  1. In your Microsoft Edge browser, sign in to the Microsoft 365 home page (https://www.microsoft365.com) and select Apps in the navigation pane. In the Apps menu that appears, select All apps. Under the top section of apps in the Apps window, select All apps→. In the All apps window, scroll down and select Viva.

  2. On the Viva home page, select Engage in the navigation pane.

  3. In Viva Engage, you should begin by creating a new community for testing the Viva Engage announcement that you create later in this task. To do so, select +Create new at the top of the Viva Engage navigation pane, and then select Community in the drop-down menu that appears.

  4. In the Create a new community window, enter TR-Pulse testing in the Name field, and enter This community is used for testing the Viva Engage announcement for TR-Pulse in the Description field. Select the Create button.

  5. In Viva Engage, select +Create new at the top of the navigation pane, and then select Post in the drop-down menu that appears.

  6. In the Post window, select the Copilot icon to open the Copilot pane.

  7. Copy and paste the following prompt that asks Copilot to draft a Viva Engage announcement highlighting the rollout of TR-Pulse:

[!NOTE] For this first prompt, we’ve provided the text so you can see what an effective prompt looks like when it incorporates the four key elements discussed in the Introduction unit. You must write all remaining prompts in this exercise, but in doing so, you can use this prompt as a model to emulate.

As the Communications Manager at Trey Research, I’ve been tasked with creating a company-wide launch announcement for an employee community post. Trey Research is introducing TR‑Pulse, a new quarterly communication experience focused on transparency, leadership connection, and employee engagement. I plan to publish the announcement in Viva Engage to encourage conversation and visibility across distributed teams. Please draft this announcement for me.

It should be a clear, engaging Viva Engage post that explains the purpose of TR‑Pulse and why it matters now. It should:

  • Describe what employees can expect in each quarterly cycle (for example, town hall, recognition stories, metrics highlights)
  • Provide simple steps on how employees can participate (join the community, attend, submit questions, share stories)
  • Invite early engagement through reactions and comments, and encourage employees to tag colleagues or leadership

The announcement should include the following expectations and constraints:

  • Audience: all employees (on-site, remote, and hybrid) across functions
  • Tone: friendly, transparent, inclusive, and leadership-aligned
  • Style: short paragraphs; scannable subheads; 1–2 links/placeholders to resources; a clear call to action
  • Add 3–4 relevant hashtags (for example, #TRPulse #LeadershipConnect #EmployeeVoice) and mention the Leadership community
  • Avoid jargon; prioritize clarity and accessibility

We plan to kick off this program with our first TR‑Pulse town hall, where company leaders address your questions and share progress updates.

  1. Review the generated announcement. In Viva Engage, Copilot is strongest before and during composition (drafting, rewriting, tone/length coaching, conversation starters, and so on) and around the post (suggesting where/what to post, summarizing context, prompting engagement).

    After you publish an announcement, Copilot can’t directly edit the live post that’s in place. Instead, you must make changes by manually editing the post yourself. Copilot can still help by suggesting improved wording or generating assets that you can then copy and paste or insert into the post. In the next steps, you edit the announcement before posting it.

  2. In the Copilot pane, review the opening sentences of the announcement. Copilot often starts with something generic like “We’re excited to announce…”. While that type of opening is fine, Viva Engage is most effective when posts open with a clear, human explanation of why something matters to employees. Ask Copilot to reword the first 1–2 sentences to address employees directly, emphasize why the issue matters to them, and set a conversational tone. Shift the message from a corporate announcement to a personal invitation.

  3. Review the revised opening. You like what Copilot did, but you want one other change. You want to improve the call-to-action in the announcement. Ask Copilot to improve the call-to-action (CTA) by including specific things employees can do. Ensure the CTA feels low-effort and welcoming.

  4. Review the CTA change. This version looks better, so ask Copilot to rewrite the entire announcement by using the revised opening sentences and CTA that it created.

  5. Review the results. In our testing, Copilot rewrote the announcement, but it didn’t use the revised opening or CTA; instead, it rewrote them again to something different. This version isn’t what we wanted, so we asked Copilot to rewrite the announcement, and this time we specifically asked it to use the revisions to the opening and the CTA that it originally proposed. In our testing, Copilot applied its original revisions.

    Check your results. Did Copilot do the same as it did in our testing, or did it apply its original revisions? If it rewrote everything over again, then ask it to rewrite the post using its original revisions.

  6. Once you’re satisfied with the announcement, select the +Add to post option that appears at the end of the results in the Copilot pane.

  7. Review the announcement that appears in the post window. Delete any of the extraneous Copilot text that appears at the start and end of the post, such as “You asked for a…”).

  8. Before you can post this announcement, you must first select a community or storyline. However, because you created the TR-Pulse testing community at the start of this task, and since that community was displayed in Viva Engage when you created this post, the announcement should appear at the bottom of the post window, above the menu bar. If a Select a community or storyline option appears at the bottom of the Viva Engage post instead, then select it and select the TR-Pulse testing community from the menu that appears.

  9. Select the Post button.

  10. In the TR-Pulse testing community, you should see the post that Copilot just created for you.

After posting the TR‑Pulse launch announcement in Viva Engage, take a moment to step back and consider what you accomplished in this task. This announcement isn’t the finish line—it’s the opening invitation to an ongoing conversation. One of the core elements of TR‑Pulse is direct leadership connection, beginning with a quarterly town hall where employees can hear openly from executives about progress, priorities, and how their feedback is shaping decisions. The questions, reactions, and comments that emerge from this announcement should help inform what leaders address next—especially where employees want more clarity or accountability.

In the next task, you build on this initial engagement by preparing leadership discussion topics for the company’s first TR‑Pulse town hall. You use Copilot to synthesize project updates and employee sentiment into transparent, employee‑centered talking points that help leadership follow through on the commitments introduced in this announcement.

As you move forward, keep in mind that employee‑centered communication isn’t just about launching a message—it’s about sustaining trust by closing the loop.