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Microsoft Viva Goals (discontinued)

Score8.4 out of 10

13 Reviews and Ratings

What is Microsoft Viva Goals (discontinued)?

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.

Viva Microsoft Viva!

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Microsoft Viva wasn't used in our office when it first came out. Recently, I have been using it more and more as it integrates into a lot of the work that I do with reminders, deadlines, and tasks that I need to do, and it has got the AI now, which I am just starting to learn. So far, I really like it and it seems like everyone like everyone here is doing the same.

Pros

  • AI Copilot
  • Task reminder
  • Calendar event reminders
  • Helps me make more efficient and quicker social media post pushes that we do weekly

Cons

  • outlook is confusing when I try to create a meeting because we also use Teams
  • Better integration of information from Teams to any application
  • A quicker way to reach customer support because the FAQ's don't have every answer

Return on Investment

  • AI co-pilot makes it easier to be more direct and less "wordy"
  • Teams is a great program and I like how it's seamless and more advanced when you want to convert a file type.
  • Tasks section is great way to keep track of lists that I constantly forget. Now I just use my computer to keep track of my "to-do list"

Alternatives Considered

monday.com

Other Software Used

Microsoft Teams, Adobe Acrobat, Excel Password Recovery

Great tool for companies looking to scale their OKR program

Pros

  • 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.

Cons

  • UI/UX can be improved on further--this has been highlighted to them. It is understandable, as they are still growing.
  • Different filters for view options are missing at this point. As a result, it becomes difficult to get customized reports/views. For example, the tree view of OKRs does not show the entirety of the tree on one page; it keeps breaking to the next page. This has also been highlighted and they are working on a release for the same.
  • Permissions for making changes at different levels (company, team, and individual) should be worked on to ensure that individuals cannot add goals at the company level.

Most Important Features

  • Transparency
  • Ease of use
  • Dashboarding

Return on Investment

  • Ally.io has had a positive impact so far in reducing the effort involved in managing the entire OKR program.
  • It also has brought with itself the opportunities to avail training and Q&A sessions with experts
  • Increased the overall engagement of the company with its objectives

My review after a year of using Ally.io on a very frequent basis.

Pros

  • Ally has a friendly platform that is easy to learn.
  • Ally.io provides great reports, metrics and dashboards.
  • Ally excels at customer experience and provide value added benefits.
  • Ally provides useful resources for OKR champions.

Cons

  • Accelerate integrations and add more integrations.
  • Ally.io has room for improvement in providing benchmark in-depth analysis across industries, same-size companies, etc.
  • Ally.io can still improve upon some of its product features and communicating the releases. Videos have been extremely helpful.

Most Important Features

  • Ease to invite new users, deactivate users.
  • Ally provides valuable training tools on the OKR framework.
  • Ally provides immediate technical and customer support.

Return on Investment

  • Timely and higher internal communication
  • Ability to strategically focus
  • Alignment to corporate goals