Viva Goals earned a real place in a lot of organizations, and for a simple reason. It put OKRs inside Microsoft 365, next to Teams, behind the same sign-in, reading from the same tenant everyone already lived in. For a Microsoft-committed company that proximity was the entire appeal, and the product delivered on it. Microsoft has since announced that Viva Goals is being wound down, which changes the question a buyer is actually asking. It is no longer whether Viva Goals is the right OKR tool. It is which destination you move your OKRs to, and whether that destination repeats the architecture you are leaving. This is an honest look at the two products, not a takedown. If you have already decided to move, the Viva Goals alternative page covers the path off it.
Last reviewed October 2026. Confirm Microsoft's exact end-of-support date before you plan a migration around it.
Where Viva Goals is genuinely strong
The Microsoft 365 integration was the headline, and it was real. Sign-in came from the tenant, OKRs sat beside Teams, and progress could surface in the places people already worked. For an organization that had standardized on Microsoft, that removed most of the adoption friction a new tool usually carries. Nobody had to learn a separate login or a separate home.
The OKR model itself was clean. Authoring objectives and key results, running check-ins, and rolling results up to a leadership view all worked the way an OKR practitioner expects. A team new to OKRs could get a first cycle running without much training, and the output was legible to executives who wanted a quick read on where things stood.
Those were genuine strengths. The product did the job it set out to do for the companies it was built for.
Where the architectures diverge
Here is the structural point, stated plainly. Viva Goals held the OKRs and asked their owners to check in on them. It sat next to the Microsoft tools, but the status came from what people typed, not from the work in Planner, Azure DevOps, or the Teams channels where delivery actually happened. The objectives lived in one place and the effort meant to move them lived in another, and manual check-ins held the two together. When a busy fortnight meant the check-in slipped, the dashboard kept showing the last number someone entered.
Vindaris takes a different approach. It maps the strategy, the goals, and the work in the tools a team already uses, then derives each goal's status from the effort actually pointed at it, and flags a goal that has stopped moving before the next review, with the reason attached. The status is a property of the work rather than an output of a weekly update. That is the real point of comparison, and it is the question worth carrying into any Viva Goals replacement.
What the retirement means for your timeline
Because Microsoft is winding Viva Goals down, every current user faces a migration whether they want one or not. That reframes the decision in a useful way. The cost of moving is no longer optional, so the only choice left is the destination. Moving to another tool built on manual check-ins reproduces the exact pattern that just reached end of life, and sets up the same upkeep burden under a different logo. Moving to a tool that analyzes the work activity removes that burden instead. The forced migration is, if nothing else, a chance to not repeat the architecture.
Who each product fits
A Microsoft-only organization that wants the lightest possible OKR authoring, is comfortable with manual check-ins, and simply needs objectives recorded somewhere may be satisfied by one of Microsoft's suggested successors. If the OKR layer is mostly a record-keeping exercise, that path is reasonable.
An organization that wants the planning picture to stay current without staffing the upkeep is the Vindaris fit, especially one already running delivery across Planner, Jira, or Asana. If the frustration with Viva Goals was that the OKRs and the real work were two separate stories someone had to reconcile each quarter, then a successor that keeps them as one story is the useful destination. For the migration steps and a side-by-side on how status is produced in each, see the Viva Goals alternative page and the strategy execution software overview.
FAQ
Is Viva Goals being discontinued? Yes. Microsoft has announced that Viva Goals is being wound down, so current users need a migration plan. Confirm the exact end-of-support date with Microsoft, because it governs how much runway you have to move your OKRs and historical data.
What is the best Viva Goals alternative? That depends on what you want the OKR layer to do. If you only need objectives recorded, a lightweight OKR tool will serve. If you want goal status to stay current from the work your team already does in Planner, Jira, or Asana, the Viva Goals alternative page sets out how Vindaris handles it.
Can I move my OKRs off Viva Goals easily? Yes. Export your objectives and key results, bring them into Vindaris as they are, and connect the work tools your team already uses. The goal structure carries over, and status starts coming from the connected work rather than from a check-in someone has to remember.