Configure Briefing email

Important

We've paused sending Briefing emails to make some improvements. Users can still access the Viva Insights Outlook add-in or Viva Insights app in Teams for key functionality until this service resumes. For more information about this change, refer to Briefing pause.

As the admin, you can configure Briefing email for your organization at the user or tenant level. You can set the default state for all users in your tenant as opted in or opted out in the Microsoft 365 admin center, or you can enable or disable the Briefing email for a specific user or multiple users with PowerShell.

Prerequisites

Confirm the following before configuring access:

  • Admin role - You must have a Global admin or an Exchange Online admin role to configure users for Briefing email in the Microsoft 365 admin center. To configure individual users through PowerShell, you must have an Exchange Online admin, a Global admin, or an Insights admin role.
  • Licensed users only - Users get access to the Briefing email only if they have licenses that include the Exchange Online service plan.
  • Understand data privacy - See the Privacy guide to understand how privacy is built into Briefing emails and to learn what you can configure to address your organization's specific privacy requirements.

User-level configuration

Confirm the following additional prerequisites. Then you can use the Exchange Online PowerShell V2 module to set Briefing email access for one user or for multiple users.

Additional prerequisites

Important

Before configuring access, confirm you're connected to Exchange Online.

Set access for one user

To enable or disable Briefing email for a specific user, use the Exchange Online PowerShell V2 module and the following command line, where you replace "joe@contoso.com" with your applicable username and organization:

Set-UserBriefingConfig -Identity joe@contoso.com [-Enabled [<$true | $false>]
  • If you set the Enabled parameter to $false, the Briefing email will be Off for that user. The user will not be able to override this setting or opt-in to the Briefing email.
  • If you set the Enabled parameter to $true, the Briefing email will be On for that user. Users can then opt-out from their Viva Insights app in Teams or on the web. If no action occurs, this setting applies by default.

Note

When Enabled is set as $true, people who had previously unsubscribed will continue to be opted out and will not receive any Briefings until they opt back in from their Viva Insights app in Teams or on the web.

For example, to get the current state of the Briefing email flag for "joe@contoso.com," you'd use:

Get-UserBriefingConfig -Identity joe@contoso.com

Set access for multiple users

You can also enable or disable Briefing email for multiple users with a PowerShell script that iterates through the users, changing the value one user at a time. Use the following script to:

  • Create a .csv file with all users that were processed with their current status.
  • List the user principal name for each user.
  • Set the specified Enabled parameter for each user.
  1. Create a comma-separated value (.csv) text file that contains the Identity of the users you want to configure. For example:

    Identity
    ClaudeL@contoso.com
    LynneB@contoso.com
    ShawnM@contoso.com
    
  2. Specify the location of the input .csv file, the output .csv file, and the value of Enabled to $true or $false for each user:

    $inFileName="<path and file name of the input .csv file that contains the users, example: C:\admin\Users2Opt-in.csv>"
    $outFileName="<path and file name of the output .csv file that records the results, example: C:\admin\Users2Opt-in-Done.csv>"
    $briefingEmailMode = $true
    
    $users=Import-Csv $inFileName
    ForEach ($user in $users)
    {
    $user.identity
    $upn=$user.identity
    Set-UserBriefingConfig –Identity $upn -Enabled $briefingEmailMode
    Get-UserBriefingConfig –Identity $upn | Export-Csv $outFileName -Append
    }
    
  3. Run the resulting commands at the Exchange Online PowerShell v2 module command prompt.

Tenant-level configuration

Note

Users can choose to opt out or back in at any time through their Viva Insights app in Teams or on the web. After you change the Briefing setting in the admin center, it will take 24 hours for the new setting change to take effect.

As the admin, use the following steps to change the setting for Briefing email at the tenant level. This setting is enabled by default, so that all users who have an Exchange Online license and their Microsoft 365 is set to a supported language will receive the Briefing email.

Users can unsubscribe individually from within any Briefing email they receive. If you disable the Briefing email at the tenant level, users in your organization will not receive the Briefing email, but individual users can override this tenant-level setting. To completely prevent a user from receiving the Briefing email, you must disable the Briefing email for that user with PowerShell.

To configure access for a tenant

Note

If you're a targeted release customer, you might see a new admin experience. To learn how to configure access for a tenant through this new experience, refer to Using the new admin experience.

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center.

  2. Make sure you're using the new admin center. To do this, if the switch in the upper right of the page reads Try the new admin center, select it so that it reads The new admin center:

    New admin center.

  3. In the left pane, expand Settings, and then select Org Settings.

  4. Under Org Settings, select Briefing email (Preview).

  5. Select or deselect the checkbox for Let people in your organization receive the Briefing email, and then select Save changes. If you deselect the checkbox, all users in your organization will not receive Briefing email, including all those who were receiving Briefing email. However, individuals can explicitly subscribe again from their Viva Insights app in Teams or on the web.

    Briefing email access.