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I need to create a new Community for Testing Purpose for my current project where I have to Automate creation of a post on Engage Community.

Rohit Raj 0 Reputation points
2026-05-20T11:57:01.7433333+00:00

I need to create a new Community for Testing Purpose for my current project where I have to Automate creation of a post on Engage Community. When testing successful, my code will point to an existing community. But for testing purpose, I need to create a temporary community. Kindly help at the earliest.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Microsoft Viva | Viva Engage
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  1. Gabriel-N 17,785 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-05-20T12:42:28.69+00:00

    Hi @Rohit Raj

    For your scenario, unfortunately, there isn’t a special or temporary “test community” concept available in Viva Engage. Communities are simply standard Engage communities within your tenant, and they are created the same way whether for production or testing.

    For testing purposes, the recommended approach is to create a normal community, as AI mentioned. You can create either a private community (recommended so it doesn’t affect other users) or a public one if needed, and then delete it once your testing is complete.

    One important point to note is that, currently, there is no documented or supported API approach to create or delete Viva Engage communities programmatically. Because of this, the typical workflow for your use case would be:

    • Manually create a test community (ideally private)
    • Use that community to validate your automation (posting logic, etc.)
    • Once validated, update your code to point to the actual production community

    If you need stronger isolation, another option is to use a separate test tenant, which is commonly recommended for development and experimentation scenarios.

    Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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  2. AI answer

    2026-05-20T11:57:21.84+00:00

    To create a temporary Viva Engage community for testing automated post creation:

    1. Open Viva Engage.
    2. In the left navigation, next to the Explore section, select the + button.
    3. From the drop-down, select Community.
      • If the button is not visible, a group creation policy is in place and an admin must grant permission to create communities.
    4. In the Community creation dialog, fill in the required fields:
      • Community name: Provide a unique test name (for example, Test Automation Community). If a Microsoft 365 Groups Naming Policy is enforced, a prefix/suffix may be added automatically.
      • Description: Add a short description (150 characters or fewer) explaining that this is for test automation.
      • Members: Optionally add up to 19 additional members (20 total including the creator) for testing.
    5. Configure access and other options as needed:
      • Who can view conversations and post messages: Choose Public Access (anyone in the network can view and join) or Private Access (only approved members can view; join requests require admin approval).
      • Classification or Sensitivity: If available in the tenant, select the appropriate label by choosing Edit and picking from the drop-down.
      • Communication Configurations: Choose the default publisher and whether conversations from other communities can be moved into this test community.
    6. Select Create.

    Once created, the community is ready for automated posting tests. Because it is a Microsoft 365-connected community, it also gets associated resources such as a SharePoint site, document library, OneNote notebook, Planner plan, and group mailbox, which can be ignored or used as needed during testing.

    When testing is complete, either delete the test community or reuse it for future tests. If the name of a deleted test community is needed again, either restore or permanently delete the associated Microsoft 365 group before reusing the same name.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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