A lot of people went looking for Viva Connections in Teams this year and found a SharePoint app where it used to be. Same tool, new name. Microsoft renamed the Viva Connections app in Teams to the SharePoint app, with the change rolling out through the first half of 2026, and nothing about what it does actually changed. The more useful question is the one the rename buried: does your intranet need it at all? For most organizations the answer comes down to who your people are and where they work, not what Microsoft is calling it this quarter.
What is Viva Connections, now the SharePoint app in Teams?
Viva Connections, renamed the SharePoint app in Teams in 2026, is the front door to your SharePoint intranet inside Microsoft Teams. It brings your home site, company news, a dashboard of quick actions, and your key resources into Teams on both desktop and mobile, so people reach the intranet without leaving the app they already work in all day. The rename changed the label on the Teams app and left the purpose untouched.
The important word is front door. It surfaces an intranet you already have, rather than being an intranet on its own. If you have built a modern SharePoint intranet on a SharePoint home site, this is how you put it in front of people inside Teams. If you haven’t, there is nothing for it to open onto, which matters more than it sounds and we will come back to it.
What the rename actually changed
Not much, and that’s the honest answer. Microsoft renamed the Viva Connections app in Teams to the SharePoint app, the rollout ran through mid-2026, and the functionality and your data stayed exactly the same. If your organization already gave the app a custom name and logo, you see no change at all. For everyone else, the app simply appears as SharePoint in Teams instead of Viva Connections.
A couple of details are worth knowing so the change doesn’t trip up your team. End users see SharePoint, while administrators still manage it as Viva Connections in the Microsoft 365 admin center, and setting up multiple home sites still runs through Viva Connections there. So if someone on your staff says Viva Connections disappeared, this rename is almost always why, and nothing was lost.
How the SharePoint app surfaces your intranet
The app pulls your existing intranet into Teams through a few parts that work together:
The home site, your intranet’s main page, shown inside Teams rather than only in a browser.
The dashboard, a set of cards for quick tasks and tools, which is the piece frontline workers tend to use most.
The feed, company news drawn from your SharePoint sites.
Resources, a curated set of links and destinations people need often.
You can connect it to an existing SharePoint home site or stand it up on its own, though connecting it to a real intranet is where the value is. On its own it’s a thin shell. Pointed at a well-built intranet, it’s a genuine front door.
Do you need Viva Connections, now the SharePoint app?
For most organizations, the SharePoint app earns its place in two situations: when you have a frontline or mobile workforce, or when you want your intranet living inside Teams where people already spend their day. Outside of those, it’s a useful addition rather than something you have to deploy.
The frontline and mobile case is the strongest. For a field technician, a nurse, a retail associate, or a driver, the Teams mobile app is often the only corporate app they open in a shift. The SharePoint app puts the intranet in their pocket, so the schedule, the policy, the announcement, and the form are a tap away instead of buried on a site they would never visit on a desktop they don’t use. That reach is hard to get any other way.
The Teams-centric case is close behind. If your people work inside Teams most of the day, meeting them there beats hoping they navigate out to a separate intranet site that quietly loses traffic. When your workforce is mostly desk-based and already visits the intranet in a browser, the urgency drops, and the app becomes a convenience rather than a requirement. Either way, the value tracks adoption, and adoption tracks whether people find something worth opening.
The mistake to avoid: turning it on before the intranet is ready
The SharePoint app is a front door, and a front door to a weak intranet just shows more people the weakness faster. This is the single most common error we see with it. A team hears about the feature, switches it on, and broadcasts a thin, poorly organized intranet to everyone in Teams, including the frontline staff who never saw it before. Adoption doesn’t go up. Distrust does.
Get the intranet right first, then deploy the app. The home site, the navigation, the content, and the governance have to be solid before you put the intranet where everyone will see it, because surfacing a mess only accelerates the mess. This is the structure-before-features order we hold to on every project, and it’s the same reason employees stop trusting SharePoint when the foundation is skipped and adoption fails.
How to roll it out well
A good rollout starts with the home site, not the Teams app. Build or confirm a real SharePoint home site, structure the dashboard around the tasks people actually do, and target content so frontline staff and office staff each see what’s relevant to them rather than one generic view. Only then do you deploy the app into Teams and put real effort behind adoption.
That sequence is what separates a SharePoint app people use from one they ignore. If you’re not sure your intranet is ready to be surfaced this widely, a discovery and readiness assessment is the fast way to find out before you turn it on for everyone.
Frequently asked questions
Is Viva Connections being discontinued?
No. It was renamed to the SharePoint app in Teams in 2026, not retired. The app, its features, and your data are unchanged, and existing deployments with custom branding keep their name and logo.
Why can’t I find Viva Connections in Teams anymore?
Because it’s now called the SharePoint app in Teams. If your organization didn’t apply custom branding, the app shows up as SharePoint instead of Viva Connections. Administrators still see it as Viva Connections in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Is the SharePoint app the same as a SharePoint intranet?
No. The app is a front door that surfaces your intranet inside Teams. You still need a real SharePoint intranet behind it, because the app displays what’s there rather than creating it.
Do I need it if we already have a SharePoint intranet?
It depends on your workforce. It’s most valuable when you have frontline or mobile staff, or when your people work primarily in Teams. For a desk-based workforce already using the intranet in a browser, it’s a helpful convenience rather than a necessity.
Does it work on mobile?
Yes. It runs through the Teams mobile app, and that mobile experience is the main reason to deploy it, since it’s how frontline and mobile workers reach the intranet when they never open a desktop.
The SharePoint app is only as good as the intranet behind it. If you want the front door to open onto something people trust, start with the intranet itself, then talk to us about deploying it to Teams in a way your frontline and office teams both actually use.
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