Microsoft Viva Goals (formerly Ally, or Ally.io) was a Strategic Goal-Planning & Execution Management software. Ally.io became a Microsoft brand after the October 2021 acquisition, and is slated for retirement December 2025.
$48
per year per user
Workplace from Meta
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Facebook at Work allows users to interact with co-workers through the Facebook interface.
I believe Ally.io to be one of the best OKR software tools available and it can be deployed easily to small, medium, large enterprises. The tool is easily scalable and its implementation can be deployed without necessarily having a pilot test. I can not find scenarios where it would not be appropriate.
I think Workplace by Facebook is a great communication vehicle for any mid-sized to large company. (Since it's more groups-oriented than "regular" Facebook, it might not work well for smaller companies.) I also don't have any idea what the cost is for having it, but that also be a reason that it wouldn't be worth the expense for smaller companies. For larger companies, I think it's a terrific way for folks to communicate with one another and for "the powers that be" to communicate with employees. Facebook Live is only suitable when you have a limited number of people who need to be on screen and it wouldn't really be suitable as a vehicle for instructor-led online training -- it's really most suitable for presentations (although, via the comments area, does allow for questions to be asked in writing)
The default state of transparency. This helps in reinforcing the superpower of OKRs. In Ally.io, the default mode of any objective created is public (unless stated otherwise). This helps people across the organization to understand where and how the organization is progressing.
The above feature of transparency is also reinforced by the feature of creating dependencies. This allows for people to understand the parties involved in achieving a particular goal and creates accountability. It is clearly understood which party has not contributed enough and RCA can be done on the same.
It allows for integrating with a host of other tools such that the check-in process can be automated. This allows for reducing the effort of managers in terms of updating multiple tools.
The dashboarding feature has helped us in reducing effort spent in creating presentations for retros, planning, and demos
Ally.io's customer success team is among the best that I have worked it. Always ready to help, proactive, and up for the next challenge. They take the success of their customers extremely seriously. Kudos to the team for this attitude.
It is so easy to introduce to employees because it has the same look and feel as Facebook, which the majority of our employees are already familiar with.
It's a communications, collaboration, and file/document sharing tool all rolled up into one. It eliminates the need for other software.
Our HR team uses it constantly to keep employees up to date on company news and for polling to get feedback on new initiatives.
Limited project management options - no good way to track tasks or projects, so other tools are needed.
Easy to dismiss for people who don't see the value - the Facebook-like nature of the tool can be a liability when it comes to wanting management to take it seriously.
Chat interface has downsides - the standalone chat applications can be a bit buggy, and the chat interface within the web view is not ideal.
No intuitive way to message a group - chat options like Slack are better at easily messaging a group or department, where in Workplace you have to be a member of a group to start a conversation.
Having to download multiple apps just to use the tool is very cumbersome. Facebook would have make this better by wrapping it in as a main feature within their app, but having to use multiple apps to see discussions and walls is so frustrating.
Workplace by Facebook is an excellent fit in respect of support and documentation. It has excellent tutorials and documentation, as well. The UI and UX are already great as it is developed and maintained by Facebook, so most of the times, there is no need for any support or documentation.
We can compare Workplace in general from email communication (we use Bananatag tool for this). Our email communication and Workplace communication are sometimes competitors. RIght now, we have much higher analytics of email read rate/open rate than on Workplace activity. It may be connected with the fact that there is a lot of communication going on on Workplace. And with the emails we have a dedicated unit to monitor and balance the daily/weekly official email load on the associate. Workplace is a live network. Of course, we as admins balance the posts in official groups. But there are lots of other groups where people post whatever they want (like local communities or communities by interest). Why we keep focus on increasing Workplace engagement instead of email communication is definitely because of this instant feedback that we can get with posting. Email communication cannot create this feeling - it's always a one-way communication in our case.
Workplace offers a free version and a more enhanced, and really enhanced, paid version. The free version is a nice place to test the waters out and see if you can get it working at your company. We have only had a positive return on investment, measured in time.
The on-boarding is where you will see the greatest positive gain. You will quickly be up and running and so will the staff. This will decrease the training and implementation period and for many that means a substantial cost savings.
The only negative return that might be realized is if too much time is spent monitoring and policing the content. If trust is there, then employees can share and enhance the use of this tool to be a positive force. As with any communication tool, set guidelines and let the community police itself to some extent.
