At first glance, emoji reactions on praise messages may seem like a minor detail. But from what we’ve seen across the organizations using LiftUp — they’re anything but.
Reactions are crucial to building a vibrant culture of recognition.
They allow colleagues to join in on a praise message, showing appreciation not just for the recipient, but also for the person who took the time to give praise. They add emotional nuance, tell mini-stories through creative emoji use, and they make praise more fun and engaging.
We’ve consistently observed that in organizations where praise messages receive lots of reactions, people also give more praise.
That’s why reactions are a core part of LiftUp. They count toward the praise score, earn points, and contribute to our recognition algorithms. We even built our own emoji system because Microsoft Teams reactions used to be too limited: outdated visuals, no support for custom emojis, and only one reaction per user per message.
Since then Microsoft has made big improvements. Reactions now look better, support a wide range of emojis (even custom ones!), and Microsoft just announced they’ll lift the restriction of one reaction per user per message.
We’re also seeing more and more customers embracing native Teams reactions — and we’re ready.
Starting today, LiftUp now displays Microsoft Teams reactions alongside LiftUp reactions in the global and team digests. This makes it easier to spot popular praise messages at a glance and brings the Digest closer to the live experience in Teams.
Teams reactions in the Digest are read-only
You can’t add or remove them directly from the Digest view (yet). This is why we have marked them with a small purple border.
Custom emojis need to be uploaded to LiftUp too
To display properly, custom reactions must be added to LiftUp with the same shortcut used in Teams.
We’re excited to keep making LiftUp the best way to foster appreciation and recognition in Microsoft Teams. And sometimes, it’s the little things — like a 🎉 or a 👏 — that make all the difference.
