What Happened to Viva Goals
Microsoft announced the retirement of Viva Goals in late 2025, with the platform shutting down in mid-2026. For organisations that built their OKR infrastructure on Viva Goals — often as part of a broader Microsoft 365 adoption — this creates an urgent migration requirement.
The good news is that this is an opportunity, not just a crisis. Many organisations that adopted Viva Goals did so because it was included in their Microsoft licensing, not because it was the best OKR platform for their needs. The forced migration is a chance to choose deliberately rather than by default.
This guide covers the three key decisions your organisation needs to make and the migration steps that apply regardless of which platform you choose.
First: Export Your Data Before the Deadline
Before anything else, export your OKR data from Viva Goals. This includes:
- All active and historical objectives and key results
- Progress history and check-in data
- User and team mappings
- Any custom fields or tags you have configured
Microsoft's data export functionality is available in Viva Goals admin settings. Export in both JSON and CSV format where possible — different migration targets will prefer different formats. Keep copies in at least two locations. Do not leave this step until the last moment.
The Three Platform Categories
OKR platforms in 2026 fall into three categories, and which is right for you depends on your organisation's priorities:
Category 1: Pure OKR Platforms
Platforms like Perdoo, Profit.co, Quantive (formerly Gtmhub), and Ally.io are built specifically for OKR management. They typically offer the most complete OKR-native feature sets: cascading, alignment views, check-in workflows, and reporting dashboards.
Best for: Organisations that want a dedicated OKR tool and are comfortable managing it separately from their project management and communication tools.
Limitation: Still primarily goal-setting tools rather than execution engines. You will still need to address the execution gap separately.
Category 2: Integrated Work Platforms
Platforms like Asana, Monday.com, ClickUp, and Notion have added OKR features to broader work management platforms. The appeal is consolidation — one tool for both OKRs and project/task management.
Best for: Smaller organisations (under 200 people) where the overhead of maintaining separate OKR and project management platforms is not justified.
Limitation: OKR features are typically less mature than in dedicated OKR platforms. Reporting and alignment views are often basic.
Category 3: AI-Native Execution Platforms
A newer category of platform — including McKenna's OKR Execution Engine approach — focuses on the execution layer rather than the goal-setting layer. These platforms connect to wherever OKRs are stored and add AI-driven progress tracking, blocker detection, and insight generation.
Best for: Organisations that have already solved the goal-setting problem and need to solve the execution problem. Also suitable for Viva Goals migrants who want to improve on their previous setup rather than simply replicate it.
Limitation: Requires integration work with existing systems. Not suitable as a standalone OKR tool — it works alongside a goal-setting platform, not instead of one.
The Migration Decision Framework
Before selecting a replacement, answer four questions honestly:
- What was actually broken about your OKR programme on Viva Goals? If the problem was goal-setting quality (poorly written objectives, no real alignment), switching platforms will not fix it. If the problem was execution (no visibility, no follow-through), you need a different type of solution.
- How embedded is your current OKR practice? If teams actively update and reference their OKRs, you have a functioning practice that needs a platform migration. If OKRs are mostly a planning exercise that teams ignore for eleven months, you need a practice reset rather than just a platform migration.
- What is your Microsoft 365 footprint? If your organisation is deeply embedded in Teams, SharePoint, and Azure, a platform that integrates natively with the Microsoft ecosystem (Planner, Azure DevOps, Teams) will produce faster adoption than one that requires separate authentication and data connections.
- What is your OKR programme budget? Dedicated OKR platforms typically cost £8–25 per user per month. For a 500-person organisation, that is £50,000–£150,000 per year for the platform alone. Factor this into your decision — and factor in the cost of the execution gap if the platform does not address it.
The Migration Process
Weeks 1–2: Discovery and Platform Shortlisting
Export all data. Map your current OKR structure (company, division, team, individual levels). Shortlist 2–3 platforms based on your decision framework. Request trials and demos.
Weeks 3–4: Pilot
Run a single team or division on each shortlisted platform for two weeks. Use real current-cycle OKRs, not synthetic test data. Evaluate on: ease of updates, quality of reporting, integration with existing tools, user adoption without training.
Weeks 5–6: Decision and Configuration
Select the platform. Configure the taxonomy (company, team, individual levels) to match your existing structure. Set up integrations with data sources (Jira, Salesforce, etc.) where available. Import historical data.
Weeks 7–8: Migration and Training
Migrate active OKRs. Run a 60-minute onboarding session per team. Create a self-service help resource (FAQ document or short video walkthroughs). Set a go-live date and communicate it clearly.
The Opportunity Within the Migration
The Viva Goals migration, handled well, is an opportunity to fix the problems that existed before the retirement announcement. If your previous OKR cycle had poor goal quality, low engagement, or weak execution, do not migrate those patterns into the new platform.
Use the migration moment to do two things: reset the quality of your objectives through a facilitated planning session, and solve the execution gap by adding AI-driven progress tracking alongside the new platform.
A forced migration that produces a better OKR programme is a better outcome than a seamless migration that replicates the same dysfunction on a different platform.
