Review what users can see in Viva Topics

• 4 minutes

Viva Topics uses your existing Microsoft 365 access settings to control what users can see. Users can only view information in Viva Topics that their existing Office 365 permissions give them permission to see. Everything a user sees on a topic page (for example, SharePoint sites, documents, files) will be information they are already allowed to see. Viva Topics does not make changes to any existing permissions.

When a topic is created through AI or manual curation, it can contain a description of the topic, alternative names, people associated with the topic, as well as sites, pages, and files related to the topic. Because of differences in permissions, two users who are viewing the same topic may not see the same information.

For example, when User 1 views the Neptune topic page, they might see this view of the topic page.

When User 2 looks at the same topic page, their view differs from User 1. User 2 can see the DG-2000 Product Overview file in the Pinned files and pages section of the topic page, which does not appear for User 1.

Viva Topics respects the permissions that are set on items in a topic and cannot change access to them. In our example, User 1 doesn't see the DG-2000 Product Overview file in their topic page for Neptune because User 1 doesn't have Office 365 permissions to view the file.

If a user isn't able to see enough information in a topic for it to be useful, the topic won't be available to them. When this happens, the user won't see the highlighted topic. A different user who has permissions to more information in the topic for it to be useful, will be able to see the topic.

Topic permissions for Knowledge managers and Topics contributors

Users are assigned permissions to manage topics. Knowledge managers can only view information they have permissions to see within topics.

For users with create and edit topic permissions (Topic contributors) can only able view information they have permissions to see within topics.

AI versus manually curated topic information

Topics can contain both information generated by AI and information added or edited by Topic contributors or Knowledge managers.

• Information in a topic that was added by AI is only visible to people who have access to the source content.
• Topic description and people information that has been manually added or edited by a topic contributor or Knowledge manager is visible to everyone who can see the topic.
• Files, pages, and sites are only visible to users who have permissions to the source content, whether manually added or added by AI.

The following table describes what Topic viewers, Topic contributors and Knowledge managers can see in each topic based on their permissions. Knowledge admins manage topic permissions settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center.