Microsoft announced last year that Delve would fade away in 2024, giving Microsoft Delve users time to deal with the fallout. But with how quickly the year ran, the end is here for Delve. So, what does Delve’s retirement mean for your organization?
Microsoft Delve’s rise and fall
It only took ten years for Delve to join Cortana, Kaizala, StaffHub, and Sway in the Windows recycle bin. Unfortunately, Delve cannot be restored. It even takes your history and favorite boards and documents with it.
Delve was introduced in 2014 as a part of Office 365 to help users discover people and information relevant to their organizational roles. Microsoft Delve leveraged the Office Graph to provide insights into the people in an organization so each person knows where to go to get their job done.
Microsoft Delve's key homepage features.
This Microsoft innovation was not perfect—with several complaints such as overwhelming search results, admin control issues, and missing profile information. Plus, there has been no mobile functionality since Microsoft retired Delve mobile apps in 2021. We should have seen this retirement coming!
Microsoft suggests alternatives to Delve
Microsoft thought canceling Delve was the best approach to enhancing digital workplace productivity and collaboration. It recommends Delve users turn to other 365 products, such as Profile Cards, Org Explorer, and SharePoint, for specific Delve functions.
Finding profiles: Go to Profile Cards, Office.com, and SharePoint search
Editing profiles: Use SharePoint
Viewing org charts: Visit Org Explorer
Accessing documents: Turn to Office.com, Office apps, and Profile Cards.
Why Microsoft’s workaround may not be ideal for you
Jon Morgan, Venture Smarter CEO, admitted that he missed ‘Delve’s conveniences’ and was now reconsidering his approach to working with his staff and helping them find each other. Jon didn’t hide that he feared ambiguity, and we’re with him on that.
Microsoft’s feature dispersal is not ideal for those looking for a centralized solution. Microsoft wants Delve users to peruse several products in the Microsoft ecosystem to find their colleagues and relevant information. That defeats the purpose of enhanced productivity, as you need a unified place to search, find, and collaborate with employees.
So, what is the best Delve alternative?
There are several Delve alternatives to consider when transitioning from Delve. But what if you had a one-stop solution that performs all of Delve’s functionalities and more? We have one for you—Sift!
Sift is an employee insight tool that provides information about an organization and its members and makes it easy for you to leverage your workforce to complete the most challenging tasks. The Delve replacement improves organizational engagement and productivity with comprehensive employee profiles, search features, and robust integration capability.
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Why is Sift a better replacement for Delve?
Sift is an even better replacement for Delve since it offers all of Delve’s features and adds functions you won’t find on Delve or any of its suggested replacements. Let’s look at the main ones.
1. Complete Employee Profiles
Microsoft Delve provides information about your colleagues, but Sift gives a complete picture of each person. You’ll find profiles with information such as the employee’s background, name pronunciation, preferred pronouns, and language.
Display your company's information with customizable profile layouts; reorder and add sections that speak to your org's needs.
Sift’s employee profiles foster an open and inclusive culture. ‘Go into Sift and look at someone’s profile, you start to get to know them. So when you reach out, you can speak their language and relate to their background,’ says Jason Raznick, CEO of Benzinga.
You can also edit your profile as you advance in knowledge, switch departments, or want to share a life update. That’s missing on Delve or Microsoft Profile Cards. Microsoft announced the upcoming release of an editing feature in the second half of 2024, but we have yet to receive an update.
Sift’s rich profiles help you understand your colleagues quickly. The skill levels feature also allows you to identify experts.
2. Data Import Capability
Microsoft Delve employee profiles are limited to the data available within the Microsoft ecosystem, and we don’t expect anything different now that users are asked to migrate to other Microsoft products. On the other hand, Sift allows you to import people's data from multiple sources to create complete profiles. Examples are IT and HR systems such as Active Directory, Okta, Workday, and UKG.
Sync and have authority over your company's people data.
3. Robust Integration
Sift enables integration with collaboration systems and communication tools so you can discover and access colleagues faster. For example, Sift has a dedicated Microsoft Teams app that reveals participants' skill sets, experience, and more before joining a team call. That way, you can quickly build rapport with them without leaving the Teams app.
Integrate Sift wherever your workforce is, whether it's remote, in the office, or out in the field.
Sift also syncs with LinkedIn to create complete professional profiles. Another integration we are proud of is the one with Copilot AI, which helps you find answers to questions in a ChatGPT prompt style.
This Delve alternative also crafts custom solutions for customers. So, feel free to contact Sift to add a popular tool for free.
4. Filtered Search
Sift allows users to search for people based on several search criteria. You can search by name, department, skills, etc., to get responses that embed links to the profiles and contact information of employees that meet your search criteria. Sift’s filter functionality further grants quicker access to employee locations, working hours, time zones, and availability.
Anything your org and your people adds can be made searchable to enrich your directory's success in connecting the right people together.
This employee directory software also helps users find task helpers faster with the recently introduced AI Copilot app on Microsoft Teams. Sift integrates with Microsoft Copilot to help your employees discover and connect with members of your organization with unique skills, expertise, and shared interests or traits (e.g., college attended and language spoken).
Your team members can now create prompts such as:
Find me a security analyst who knows javascript
Find me someone who is fluent in Spanish and knows Canva
I need to connect with three Harvard University Alumni in the United Kingdom.
Before they know it, they’ve received the data and connections they need to complete their tasks.
5. Mobile Compatibility
Before Microsoft decided to retire Delve, users could use the app on the go until June 2021, when Microsoft disabled mobile compatibility. Not allowing users to search for, find, and connect with members of their organizations reduced productivity since Delve users working away from their computers had to delay finding help. But that’s not true for Sift users, who can use Sift from anywhere. Visit the Apple Store or Google Play Store to download Sift on your phone or iPad.
Sift Emerges as A Suitable Delve Replacement
As Microsoft 365 retires Delve, it's clear that Delve played a significant role in shaping collaboration and productivity in the digital workplace. While its retirement may cause some data losses and disrupt familiar workflows, it also creates opportunities for alternatives like Sift to step in and enhance employee collaboration even further.
Sift stands out as a leading Delve alternative, with its robust employee directory and profile management, enhanced search capabilities, seamless data import, and integration with third-party tools, all on a streamlined platform.
Try the Sift Pro plan for 14 days to see how it works. You’ll see that your organization can do better even with Delve heading into the sunset.
