Hi Kathleen,
I have consulted our engineers further about your problem. If we don't work on Teams although Teams is running in the background and we work on our computer, the status will be changed to Away after five minutes automatically.
Given your situation, there is a workaround you can have a try. You can set a status message and show the message when someone message you so that your co-workers know you are available at that time. To do that, please click on your profile picture and select Set status message, then type any status message like "I'm available." in and check the
Show when people message me option. You can also set the time when the message can be cleared. After setting it, click
Done to save the changes. Then your co-worker will be able to see your status message when they message you or @mention you.
Hope this can help you and welcome back to share your feedback with me.
Regards,
Seven
WHAT KIND OF ANSWER IS THIS. HAS TO BE A JOKE