To celebrate the 5th Birthday of Microsoft Teams on March 14th 2022, I’m publishing this article help you rediscover one of the early features of Teams. After all, a birthday is a great opportunity to send Praise!

I’m often struck by how often people seem to think using the Praise feature in Teams is a bit of a gimmick. Maybe it’s partly due to the stereotypical British tendency to downplay achievements and adding a rainbow unicorn picture to a message to let someone know you appreciated them is not understated.

However, when you received that thank you message or congratulations on a job well done, didn’t it make you feel good? Now add the rainbow unicorn image to it and I challenge you not to smile.

Let’s share those smiles, send the praise and then look back to the history of praise received and sent and relive those smiles again 🙂

Here’s how!

From Chat & Channel Messages

You can send praise with a Teams message in chat or in a channel using the Praise icon

To compose your Praise message:

1. Use the Praise button to open compose box
2. Select badge
3. Enter Note (optional)
4. Choose Preview
5. Send

From Viva Insights

You can also send praise using Viva Insights in Microsoft Teams. On the Home tab of Viva Insights, you will see a card for Praise which includes a link to Send praise.

This gives you a similar compose praise experience as from the message compose box, but does also offer the choice of posting to 1:1 Chat or into a Team.

Scheduling Praise with Viva Insights

If you would like regular reminders to send Praise, perhaps at the end of each working week, Viva Insights includes a Praise shedule.

To see the praise schedule use the … menu at the top right of any Viva Insights screen and choose Settings then Praise to set the day(s) and time of day for the reminders.

Praise History

Whilst Praise has been with us from the early days of Microsoft Teams, Praise history is a new feature and links to Viva Insights.

You can access the Praise history in the Home tab of Viva Insights, using the link on the Home tab to Send praise. Below the compose praise screen is your praise history. With a selector at the top right to choose sent or received praise and a card for each message sent or received over the previous 6 months.