How can we make Microsoft Teams better?

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online status

The automatic status should be based on the overall PC activity, not specific on Teams activity.
For instance, my status shows "Away" although I'm working on my PC in Word or Excel and Teams is running in the background. When I switch to Teams and do something, only then the status is "Available". But the status should be "Available" when I do other work in the PC.

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Tom shared this idea  ·   ·  Flag idea as inappropriate…  ·  Admin →

15 comments

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  • MH commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I can't believe it's been over 2 years and the issue still exist. Recently I found out that the time for the status switches "Available" to "Away" has been shortened. This is the most annoying feature that Team has.

  • Alan commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    It is extremely annoying that MS Teams switches from AVAILABLE to AWAY when you do not want it to happen. Sometimes I am working on things that do not involve being on my computer and MS Teams identify my absence as idle. Noooooo... How can we make that stop? Add a costume field in which we can set a time for it be in AWAY status when we want it.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    There should be an option to extend the time duration for the "availability" if the system is idle for XX minutes, like how Skype for Business has option to change that.

  • Jennifer commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I need the ability to select 'offline' but still be signed in (just like Skype for Business). I often times need to appear offline from most people and still chat with who I want. Also if I'm working on things outside of business hours but don't want anyone to chat with me.

  • Amy commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    Having Teams function similarly to Skype would be huge - one of the features I really took advantage of in Skype was easily being able to see if someone has been away for "x" amount of minutes, giving me an idea if they should be returning from lunch, or a meeting or if they've left for the day. Yes this function is there, but it requires you to hover over that person's name to see how long they've been away, rather than just seeing it next to their name. Please integrate this into an easier view option possibly in the settings!

  • christine cunneen commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    AGREED - we also used to be able to add a note. For example 'Be Right Back' "going to lunch, or driving the kids to school

  • Martin Shepherd commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    So, today, I am offered the option to always sign in to Teams with a Status of Do Not Disturb!
    Was it too hard to offer all status categories as a default sign in LIKE SKYPE DID?
    Seriously, this is worse than no status at all.

    Refer to the the code for Skype for Business and make it work in Teams.

    Upon sign in in Skype, one sees the complete drop down list under the box that says:

    Sign in as:
    Available
    Busy
    Do Not Disturb
    Be Right Back
    Appear Away
    Off Work

  • Martin Shepherd commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    The Teams Status indicator must be fixed.
    1. A user should have the option to set a status as Away, Busy, Be Right Back, etc.
    2. A user should be able to set a time before the status changes to Away due to inactivity. For example, 5 minute increments up to 30 minutes.
    3a. When a user logs back in, Teams should show any current status if other than Available and ask if the user wants to update that status OR
    3b. Automatically update the user status to Available when the user logs back in or starts a new session.

    Making it work like Skype For Business would be better than nothing.

  • Steven Walden commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    Honestly Microsoft. How can you force us to move to Teams and then make such a huge blunder as this? Presence awareness has been one of the ways I, as a Microsoft Partner, have been selling Office 365 into my clients. Now, you want to mess up such a rudimentary thing? This needs to be addressed ASAP. My clients are not happy so this is making my business look bad.

  • Jason Up commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I agree with @MattStern, Teams should mimic SfB status behaviour. I have them running side-by-side and SfB tells me I'm Available and Teams says I'm still in that meeting that ended an hour ago.

  • Sven Engelhardt commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    I decide when I'm busy, not Teams. I will be able to configure teams to respect my
    calendar (or whatever) or not. I'll have the possibility to switch off this annoying
    feature.
    And I'll not be obligated to change my state again and again every time a meeting
    ends earlies as defined in my calendar or if teams thinks that when I'm not chatting
    I'm not available.
    For me, this is Microsofts main problem. It thinks it knows what I'll do/have or not
    (simply see MS-Word behaviour). But this is wrong in 99% of the cases and leads
    at least to more work than doing it manually.

  • Michael Taylor commented  ·   ·  Flag as inappropriate

    It does this when it knows you have a meeting as well. But a meeting may be at my desk or I may not attend. Unless I remember to go back to teams and change it then it'll show me as away.

    At least a step up would be the ability to be able to change the status from the sys tray.

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