Yes and no. Microsoft moved the old Dynamics 365 partner and community interest groups off of Yammer and onto Viva Engage. Same spirit, new (and honestly better) home. These communities are Microsoft-hosted, which means the people showing up to answer your questions aren't just other consultants guessing — they're actual product and engineering subject matter experts from the F&O team.

That distinction matters a lot. A public forum gives you crowd-sourced answers. A Microsoft-hosted community gives you a direct line to the people writing the setting the roadmap.

Here's the part people underestimate: these communities aren't a one-way support channel. They're a feedback loop.

When enough partners and customers in a topic group raise the same pain point, ask the same workaround question, or flag the same gap in documentation, the Microsoft team notices. I've seen firsthand how an active, vocal community around a specific feature area can influence what gets prioritized, what gets clarified in Microsoft Learn docs, and what shows up in the next wave release notes.

If you only ever consume documentation after it's published, you're reacting. If you're in the room (or the feed) where that documentation gets shaped, you're participating.

Here's something a lot of people miss: some of these communities post links to office hours sessions run by the Microsoft product team. These aren't big, faceless webinars either. I've hopped into ones where it was me and a small handful of other people on the call — sometimes just two or three of us.

That small group size is the whole point. I've walked away from these sessions having gotten genuine one-on-one time with the actual product team: asking pointed questions about a feature I was working through, giving direct feedback on something that wasn't working the way I expected, and building a real connection with the people behind the product. That's not something you get from a support ticket or a forum post. It's a completely different level of access, and it's sitting right there in these communities if you know to look for it.

If you're only skimming the post feed and never clicking into the office hours links, you're leaving the best part on the table.

If you're not already in, here's the door: 

Request access to the Finance and Operations Viva Engage Community.

Fill out the form, choose the specific community or communities that match what you actually work on, and wait for approval. It's a quick process, and it's worth doing today rather than putting it on your someday list.