7 Best Microsoft Teams Apps for Employee Feedback

Microsoft Teams has seven realistic options for employee feedback: Microsoft Forms polls, Viva Pulse, Viva Glint, Zensai Perform & Engage 365, Perceptyx, Teamflect and Polly. For an IT admin the shortlist matters less than three questions: which license sends the survey, how confidential the results really are, and whether the app clears your Teams admin center review.

Quick fix: If HR wants a quick manager pulse, start with the Microsoft-native Viva Pulse and check the licensing first. If they need a full employee listening program, look at Viva Glint or an attested third-party app, and approve it in Teams apps > Manage apps after reviewing its Security and Compliance tab.

This guide is for Microsoft 365 and Teams admins and governance owners who get asked to approve or deploy a feedback app. Certification statuses reflect the Microsoft list of certified and attested Teams apps as of October 2026.

The 7 apps at a glance

App	Type	Best for	Licensing or pricing model	Certification status (Microsoft list, Oct 2026)
Microsoft Forms polls	Microsoft-native	Quick polls in Teams meetings	Included with Microsoft 365	First-party Microsoft app
Viva Pulse	Microsoft-native	Managers gathering feedback from their team	Viva license required to send (Viva Suite, Workplace Analytics and Employee Feedback, or Glint); no license to respond	First-party Microsoft app
Viva Glint	Microsoft-native	Organization-wide employee listening	Viva Suite or Viva Glint subscription	First-party Microsoft app
Zensai Perform & Engage 365	Third-party	Check-ins inside Teams	Quote-based	Publisher Attested and Microsoft 365 Certified
Perceptyx	Third-party	Enterprise employee listening	Quote-based	Publisher Attested
Teamflect	Third-party	Reviews, 1:1s, goals and surveys in Teams	Free Starter plan up to 10 users, paid tiers on request	Publisher Attested
Polly	Third-party	Polls and surveys in Teams and meetings	Free plan available	Publisher Attested

Sources for the table: Viva Pulse licensing, Viva Glint licensing, Zensai pricing, Perceptyx, Teamflect pricing and Polly pricing.

Microsoft Forms polls: the free baseline

Microsoft Forms polls run inside Teams meetings and ship with Microsoft 365. Only meeting owners and presenters can create, manage and launch them, according to Microsoft’s poll documentation. The organizer can record respondent names, visible only to the organizer and presenters, or keep responses anonymous. Some poll types are unavailable in GCC High and DoD.

Polls suit a live “how did that session land” question. They are not a recurring engagement program.

Viva Pulse vs Viva Glint

Viva Pulse is built for leaders and managers who want to seek and act on feedback, while Viva Glint is Microsoft’s “voice of the employee” solution, as described in the Viva overview. In practice:

• A manager creates a Pulse in the Viva Pulse app in Teams, picking at least 5 people or a group. By default it closes after 7 days, and the range is 1 to 27 days. Recipients are notified in the Teams activity feed, in Teams chat and by email, per Microsoft’s guide to creating a Pulse.
• Viva Glint is the organization-level program. Glint subscribers also get access to Viva Pulse.

Microsoft notes that creating and sending a Pulse also requires a Microsoft Forms license, so confirm that before rollout.

Zensai Perform & Engage 365

Zensai’s product, formerly Engage365, runs check-ins inside Teams, per Zensai. It is the only third-party app on this list that is both Publisher Attested and Microsoft 365 Certified. Pricing is by quote, with request-a-quote editions.

Perceptyx

Perceptyx is an enterprise employee listening platform. Its Teams app handles survey notifications and nudges. It is Publisher Attested and priced by quote. Expect a platform deployment with HR and analytics owners, not a quick app install.

Teamflect

Teamflect is a Teams-native tool for performance reviews, 1:1s, goals and surveys. It offers a free Starter plan for up to 10 users, which makes a pilot easy to run, and it is Publisher Attested.

Polly

Polly runs polls and surveys in Teams and in meetings, has a free plan, and is Publisher Attested. It overlaps with Forms polls, so the question to answer before adding it is what Forms cannot do for your teams.

Other attested options: Tap My Back (peer recognition plus pulse) and Wrenly (now a performance, recognition and engagement platform with engagement surveys and a suggestion box) are also Publisher Attested on Microsoft’s list. Tap My Back’s vendor pricing starts from $2 per user per month billed annually, per its pricing page, as of October 2026.

Anonymous vs confidential

Do not promise employees anonymity unless the tool can truly deliver it. Microsoft draws a clear line in its Viva Glint documentation, titled “Why Viva Glint surveys are confidential but not anonymous”:

• Confidential: results are aggregated and respondent identity is not disclosed.
• Anonymous: there is no way to link data to an individual.

Microsoft also says not all Glint surveys are confidential. For Viva Pulse, Microsoft’s privacy documentation says authors do not see names or identifiers unless employees put them in write-in answers. It adds that “Only administrators and privileged users with elevated permissions may be able to identify employees and their responses in certain circumstances.”

So describe Pulse and Glint to staff as confidential, with thresholds. In Pulse admin settings you can set the minimum recipients between 3 and 25, set the minimum responses before results show, add a custom privacy message, turn off diagnostic data and delete a user’s data or surveys.

How to approve or block a feedback app in the Teams admin center

Use Teams apps > Manage apps to allow or block an app, as documented in Microsoft’s Manage apps guide. The Teams Administrator role applies.

1. Check the catalog tile. The “Apps to consider allowing” tile shows counts of certified and publisher-attested apps.
2. Open the app page and read its Security and Compliance tab, which shows the certification status. Per Microsoft 365 App Compliance, Publisher Attestation is a self-assessment, while Microsoft 365 Certification is a yearly independent audit that includes penetration testing. Treat them differently in your risk review.
3. Set availability with app centric management. Starting in April 2025, Microsoft automatically migrates tenants to app centric management, and app permission policies are deprecated. Availability is Everyone, Specific users or groups, or No one, per the app centric management documentation. Changes can take up to 24 hours, and the migration cannot be reverted.
4. Handle Graph permissions. Only Global Administrators can grant org-wide consent to app permissions, and Teams admins can only view them. If an update adds permissions that need admin consent, users cannot use the app until consent is granted. Resource-specific consent permissions are granted by team owners, per Microsoft’s consent guide.
5. Use user requests. Users can request apps from the catalog, which gives HR a formal path instead of side-loading.

Two catches. Guests cannot use apps assigned to specific users or groups. And in GCC, GCC High and DoD, all third-party apps are blocked by default, so plan the allow-listing before you promise a date.

Licensing traps

• Sending vs responding. Only users with a valid license can create and send Pulse requests. Full premium sending needs Viva Suite, Viva Workplace Analytics and Employee Feedback, Viva Glint, or an admin-led trial of 25 users for 30 days, per the licensing page. Responding needs no license, per Microsoft’s Viva pricing page.
• Copilot license is not the same experience. Microsoft’s support page says you need a Viva Pulse or Microsoft Copilot license to access Pulse, and the admin documentation says Copilot-license users get a limited experience. Customization, notifications and delegation are premium-only.
• Forms license too. Creating and sending a Pulse also requires a Microsoft Forms license.
• Glint seat counts. Glint licenses must be at least equal to active users. If you exceed them there is a 45-day grace period, after which new survey creation stops, per Microsoft’s Glint order guide.
• Licenses live in the Microsoft 365 admin center, so assign them there before launch day.

Questions to ask a third-party vendor

• Is the app Publisher Attested, Microsoft 365 Certified, or neither? Where is it on Microsoft’s list?
• Which Microsoft Graph permissions does it request, and which need Global Administrator consent? What happens when an update adds more?
• Is it anonymous or confidential, and what exactly can administrators or vendor staff see?
• Does it work for guests, and does it run in GCC, GCC High or DoD?
• What is the pricing model, free plan limits and exit path for your data?

Acting on results: the manager angle

Collecting feedback is the easy half. Gallup reports that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, down from a peak of 23% in 2022, and that manager engagement fell from 27% to 22% between 2024 and 2025. Gallup’s CEO pointed at the same place in its State of the Global Workplace 2026 press release:

“Businesses are investing heavily in AI, but the results are not showing up in the bottom line. Gallup’s data points to an answer the corporate world has largely ignored: the manager.” — Jon Clifton, Gallup CEO

That does not prove a pulse survey fixes engagement. It does explain why manager-led tools like Viva Pulse fit: the person who reads the results is the person who can act on them. As the admin, make sure managers know their minimum-response threshold, know that results are confidential rather than anonymous, and have a clear owner for follow-up.

Conclusion

Start with what you already own: Forms polls for live questions and Viva Pulse for managers, once licensing is confirmed. Move to Viva Glint or a third-party app only when HR needs a wider program, and run each one through Manage apps, the Security and Compliance tab and Global Administrator consent before you roll it out.