The setting for mandatory content review can be made by admins or campaign owners directly in the campaign settings. This is done via the gear icon in the upper right corner of the Viva Amplify dashboard. Once activated, posts within a campaign must be reviewed and approved by the designated approvers before they can be published.
Another detail is the possibility to designate multiple approvers, all of whom need a Viva Amplify license. It can be defined whether approval from all or just one approver is required. This offers flexibility but also brings challenges, especially in managing complex approval hierarchies.
This new feature brings clear added value for companies that want to ensure consistent and high-quality internal communication. By making reviews mandatory, the risk of unreviewed or incomplete information reaching the public is minimized. Especially in companies that rely heavily on compliance and corporate governance, this feature provides an additional control mechanism.
The approval process is also ideal for organizations that want to integrate the four-eyes principle into their communication strategy. This ensures that all content is reviewed by a second, independent instance for errors or ambiguities before going live.
Individual Assignment of Approvers per Post:
Currently, an approver must be selected individually for each post. In large campaigns that include many individual posts, this can quickly lead to a high administrative burden. An automatic assignment based on roles or responsibilities would be a useful development.
Self-Approval Possible:
Another unresolved issue is that the campaign creator can designate themselves as the approver. This undermines the principle of independent review and should be addressed through stricter role separation in the tool.
Urgency Marking:
In cases where particularly quick approval is required, the approval request can be marked as „important.“ However, there is currently no automatic escalation if an approver does not respond in time. An escalation level or automatic reminder would be desirable here.
The technical implementation of the new feature is based on the existing user and role concepts in Microsoft 365, extended by specific approval mechanisms in Viva Amplify. Essentially, it is the „Approval“ function in Power Automate, which we have encountered in various places in Microsoft 365. Administrators have the option in the Viva Amplify campaign settings to specify which users may act as approvers.
Although the approval workflow in Microsoft Teams may give the impression that approvers do not need an additional Viva Amplify license, this is not correct. Since the approver is organizationally responsible for reviewing the content and deciding whether it should be published, reviewing and evaluating the content requires a license in the Microsoft Viva area.
The new mandatory content review feature in Viva Amplify is an important step towards improving communication processes in companies. It enables clear quality control and helps to avoid errors before publication. However, there is still room for improvement, particularly in managing approvers and the possibility of self-approval. Companies that want to use this feature should be aware that it is still in a developmental stage that requires further refinement.
Overall, however, it is a valuable addition that has the potential to significantly improve internal communication in companies.
