Test your pilot for Viva Topics

  • 4 minutes

Your organization should already determine the value for adopting Viva Topics before a pilot and testing. The value should be the same as the rollout strategy you've already decided.

Implement the four key steps for a successful pilot and testing after launching Viva Topics:

  1. Run a pilot of topic management or content processing features.
  2. Review suggested, confirmed, published, and removed topics.
  3. Get quality scores for each Topics page.
  4. Analyze traffic and impressions for each Topics page.

Step 1: Run a pilot of topic management or content processing features

To test topic management or content processing features with a pilot group of users: have set clear goals, decide on a pilot period length, choose your champions, and develop an onboarding and communications plan.

Knowledge managers help to guide discovered topics through the topic lifecycle in which topics are:

  • Suggested: A topic has been identified by AI and has enough supporting resources, connections, and properties.
  • Confirmed: A topic that has been suggested by AI is validated. Validation is done by confirmation from a Knowledge manager. Additionally, a topic can be confirmed if at least two users give positive feedback through the feedback question on the topic card.
  • Published: A confirmed topic has been curated: manual edits have been made to improve its quality.
  • Removed: A topic is rejected by a Knowledge manager and will no longer be visible to viewers. The topic can be in any state when it is removed (suggested, confirmed, or published). When a published topic is removed, the page will need to be deleted manually through the Pages Library of the topic center.

Step 2: Review suggested, confirmed, published, and removed topics

On the topic center Manage Topics page, topics discovered in your specified SharePoint source locations are listed in the Suggested tab.

If needed, a Knowledge manager can review unconfirmed topics and choose to confirm or reject them.

Step 3: Get quality scores for each Topics page

Each topic that appears in your Suggested Topics page has a Quality score assigned to it. The Quality score reflects the amount of information the average user will see for the information on the topic, keeping in mind each user may see information because of the permissions they may or may not have.

The Quality score can help give insight to topics with the most information and finding topics to be manually edited. For example, a topic with a lower quality score may be the result of some users not having SharePoint permissions to pertinent files or sites that AI has included in the topic. A contributor could then edit the topic to include the information (when appropriate), which will then be viewable to all users who can view the topic.

Step 4: Analyze traffic and impressions for each Topics page

Use the following information to review impressions, topics, and usage analytics.

Impressions

The Impressions column displays the number of times a topic has been shown to end users. This includes views through topic cards in search, topic highlights, and topic center views. It does not reflect the click-through on these topics, but the topic has been displayed. The Impressions column will show for topics in the Suggested, Confirmed, Published, and Removed tabs in the Manage Topics page.

Confirmed topics

On the Manage topics page, topics were discovered in your specified SharePoint source locations and have been confirmed by a Knowledge manager (or "crowd-sourced" confirmed by two or more people through the card feedback mechanism) are listed in the Confirmed tab. If needed, a user with permissions to manage topics can review confirmed topics and choose to reject them.

To review a confirmed topic

  1. On the Confirmed tab, select the topic to open the topic page.
  2. Review the topic page. Select Edit if you need to make any changes to the page.

You can still choose to reject a confirmed topic. To do this, go to the selected topic in the Confirmed list, and select the x.

Published topics

Published topics have been edited so specific information will always appear to users on the page. Manually created topics are listed here as well.

Review site usage analytics

  • Select one or more topics.
  • Limit who can author and edit the chosen topic in the pilot and testing.
  • Engage the pilot group to get feedback and gain insights into the experience of topics.