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How to Identify Most Active Viva Engage Users with Power Automate & Excel

Steve K Sep 30, 2026 869 views

Question details

The user needs to track user engagement and identify the most active members within a Viva Engage community.

How to Identify the Most Active Users in Viva Engage

Product: Viva Engage, Power Automate, Excel
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Monitoring community activity by collecting user message counts to determine top contributors.
Observed behavior: Requires an automated method to retrieve community messages, log user names, and count messages in a spreadsheet to isolate active users.

Before you start

Ensure you have an active Microsoft 365 subscription with permissions to access Viva Engage, Power Automate, and cloud storage (OneDrive or SharePoint) for your Excel file.

Solution 1Recommended

Create a Power Automate Flow to Export Viva Engage Data

Set up an automated flow to capture new Viva Engage messages and record the sender details into an Excel table, where you can easily sort and count the data.

By utilizing the Viva Engage connector in Power Automate, you can continuously push new community messages into an Excel Online spreadsheet. Once the data is in Excel, sorting and filtering tools can instantly reveal who is posting the most.

Create the destination Excel Table

Create a new Excel workbook in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint. Add column headers such as 'User Name', 'Message', and 'Date'. Select these cells, go to the Insert tab, and click Table to format it as a formal data table.

Set up the Power Automate trigger

Log in to Power Automate and click 'Create' to start an Automated cloud flow. Search for the Viva Engage connector and choose the trigger 'When a new message is posted in a community'. Select your specific community from the dropdown.

Add the Excel Online action

Click 'New step' and search for 'Excel Online (Business)'. Select the 'Add a row into a table' action. Choose the location, document library, and the specific Excel file and Table you created in step 1.

Map the dynamic content

Click into the fields for 'User Name' and 'Message' and select the corresponding dynamic content generated from the Viva Engage trigger (e.g., 'Sender Name', 'Message Body'). Save and test your flow.

Filter and identify active users

Once messages populate the Excel file, open the workbook. You can sort the 'User Name' column alphabetically, or insert a Pivot Table with 'User Name' in the Rows area and 'User Name' in the Values area (as a Count) to instantly see the most active users.

Create a Power Automate Flow to Export Viva Engage Data

Historical Data Alternative: Power Automate flows only trigger for new messages moving forward. If you need historical data immediately, consider checking the built-in Viva Engage Community Analytics dashboard.

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Analyze Your Community Data with WPS Office

After setting up your automation to capture Viva Engage messages into an .xlsx file, you can use WPS Spreadsheet to open, manage, and analyze the resulting data. WPS Office is a highly compatible, lightweight alternative to Microsoft Office that includes powerful Pivot Tables for effortless data counting and sorting.

1. Open your exported data: Download your generated Excel file from OneDrive and open it using WPS Spreadsheet.
2. Insert a Pivot Table: Highlight your data table, navigate to the Insert tab, and click PivotTable to summarize the user engagement metrics.
3. Count user messages: Drag the 'User Name' field into both the Rows box and the Values box to generate an exact message count for each community member.

Completely free and lightweight Office suiteFully compatible with Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) formats and exported flow dataAdvanced Pivot Table features to quickly summarize active user countsFamiliar interface ensures zero learning curve when switching

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can Power Automate retrieve old Viva Engage messages?

No, standard Power Automate triggers for Viva Engage only run when a new message is posted after the flow has been activated. To extract historical data, you must use the Viva Engage network data export features accessible by network administrators.

Why isn't my Excel file appearing in the Power Automate dropdown?

Your Excel file must be saved in a supported cloud location like OneDrive for Business or a SharePoint Document Library. Additionally, the data range inside the workbook must be formatted as a formal Table (Insert > Table) for Power Automate to recognize it.

Does Viva Engage have built-in tools to see active users?

Yes. If you are a community admin, you can navigate to your community page and click on 'About' > 'View Community Analytics'. This dashboard provides high-level metrics on active people and engagement, though exporting via Power Automate offers more granular and customizable data.

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