Microsoft Viva Goals→OKIAR

Migration guide · Microsoft Viva Goals

Viva Goals migration: what's in your export, and how to move your OKRs to OKIAR

Facts checked October 27, 2026

Before you start: what's still possible after December 31, 2025

Access ended on December 31, 2025, or earlier if your licenses expired first, and Microsoft offered no extension. Microsoft's retirement FAQ doesn't say how long it kept data after that, or how it deleted it.

Start with your own systems. Explorer exports were emailed to the person who ran them, so search mailboxes for the export email. From June 2025, admins could also download JSON or CSV files from an Export tab.

For anything else, ask your Microsoft representative or GoalsDecom@microsoft.com, the two contacts Microsoft named for transition help.

Step 1: Work out which Viva Goals export you have

Viva Goals had five ways to get data out, and each one holds something different.

An Explorer export (CSV or XLSX)

Microsoft's Explorer help says the exporter picked which fields to include, and it never lists the fields available. Export settings were saved for every user, so one person's choices shaped later files. Tags may sit in separate columns.

Key results and initiatives are in the file only if the exporter ticked that option, and then only the first level below each objective. The same page told users to clear the "Show only top-level objectives" checkbox to get key results, so some files may hold objectives only.

An admin data export (JSON or CSV)

From mid-June 2025, org and team admins had an Export tab in Organization settings and Team settings. It produced goal-related data as JSON or CSV, was on by default, and came with no published field list. Microsoft announced it in Message center post MC1092430 (third-party mirror).

Keep an untouched copy before anyone opens or renames it. Atlassian, for one, asks for the JSON version unmodified.

Other files: Graph output, PowerPoint and the Members CSV

Developers could request a Microsoft Graph export job through a beta API, one Explorer view per job. Results expired, and Microsoft didn't document the file format. Check what the developer saved, then treat it like an Explorer export.

PowerPoint exports were editable slides built from a template, as of a date the user chose. They aren't data files, but they show how your goal tree looked.

Admins could also download a CSV of people information from the Members tab. Use it to rebuild your teams.

If you have no file

Without a file, rebuild from your last quarterly review deck and any slides people kept. Starting over? OKIAR's OKR examples cover 16 teams, with templates you can copy.

Step 2: Check what your file contains

Microsoft never published an export schema, and files differ because each exporter chose different fields. The best public list we found is Atlassian's mapping of the admin export, which shows what one importer reads. Compare your file's columns with it.

Atlassian also lists what its importer leaves behind. It doesn't migrate alignment, contributions, status configuration, data source, target type, phased targets, risk thresholds, check-in owners or tasks. It skips initiatives and goals with permissions set, and keeps one parent per goal, storing any others in a custom field.

Viva Goals used seven statuses: Not Started, On Track, Behind, At Risk, Closed, Postponed and Reopened. Ask each vendor how it maps them and what its importer leaves out. Write the gaps down before you plan the move.

Moving to a tool other than OKIAR

Send the vendor a sample of your file and ask to see the result before you sign. Atlassian, for example, asks for the unmodified admin JSON export through a Support ticket. Our Viva Goals alternatives page compares eight tools, including what each offers for migration.

Step 3: Rebuild your current quarter in OKIAR

OKIAR's goal import lets you upload your export, up to 5 MB, at sign-up or later. It reads spreadsheets (multi-sheet Excel included), CSV, PDF, Word, text and Markdown, and helps map people, teams and parent links for you to review. JSON isn't on that list, so use the CSV version of an admin export. OKIAR drafts a plan from the file, and you edit it before you accept it. Bring in only the quarter you're in, and keep the original file as your archive.

White glove migration is listed on OKIAR's Enterprise plan, which is coming soon.

1. Sign up free, with no credit card. OKIAR's beta plan has no cap on team members, so invite everyone who owns a goal.
2. Upload your export with goal import, and review the draft plan before you accept it.
3. Check your teams against the Members CSV or the Team column in your file. Check that every owner still works with you.
4. Check that each team goal aligns to the right company objective, using the Parent and Child columns.
5. Check each key result's start value, target and unit against your file. All three are optional in OKIAR.
6. Move metrics you track all the time, such as revenue or uptime, into KPIs instead of key results.
7. Connect the Slack integration, so owners get reminders, check in from Slack, and see summaries in their channels.
8. Check the result against your PowerPoint export or last review deck, using the objective, team and person views. Fix owners and links that don't match.

Or rebuild with Claude or Codex

OKIAR's MCP connection can create objectives, key results and KPIs. If your file needs reshaping first, connect it to Claude or Codex, share your export, and ask the assistant to create your current quarter. It follows your role and team permissions. Check the result against your file before the first check-in.

Where each Viva Goals field goes in OKIAR

What to do with Viva Goals statuses

We suggest you don't copy old statuses across. Ask each owner to set confidence fresh in their first OKIAR check-in instead.

Step 4: Replace each Viva Goals integration

Every Viva Goals integration stopped on December 31, 2025. Viva Goals had checked them for new data once per hour, and you could also sync by hand. OKIAR offers Slack and MCP connections today, so most old syncs become a weekly update from the owner.

Tell owners before the first check-in that they'll now enter progress themselves.

Viva Goals' integration list named 31 sources, and its admin page added Teams and Project for the web.

Step 5: Run the first check-in

Hold the first check-in in your first week on OKIAR, while the rebuild is fresh.

• Set each team's cadence and check-in template.
• Ask each owner to check in by voice or text, covering progress, confidence and blockers.
• Read the weekly summary together at the next team meeting, since it surfaces what needs attention.
• Once you have several check-ins, open Insights to see pacing, confidence and recurring blockers.
• Use a mid-quarter review to adjust the plan as things change.

Our weekly check-in template gives you five prompts to reuse.