Teams away setting automatically switching on when not away

Anonymous
2020-07-01T17:06:37+00:00

Hi there, 

My teams status is constantly switching to "away" while I am working on my computer. This is very frustrating as my co-workers need to know when I am actually away or available.

Is there a manual override for this? It would be excellent to be able to set it as available so that my team knows they can reach my even if I am working on paper, or in this case if it has switched itself to "away".

Thanks!

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Other

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-28T13:31:44+00:00

    Seven,

    While the work-around would technically work, I'm not sure why this should even be necessary.

    One of the plus sides of Teams before this update WAS that it was very easy to stay connected with coworkers and for them to know when each other was available. It is unrealistic, impractical and unproductive to expect everyone to be actively working in Teams 100% of the day (or at least every 5 minutes).

    I can understand the argument that this "enhancement" would allow users to focus on other work on their computer and not be distracted by an onslaught of Teams messages, but now our phones are just beeping with Teams notifications since Teams is "idle", defeating the purpose.

    As a service based company, many times a quick interruption can save another coworker spinning their wheels for hours trying to solve a problem. Now we assume each other is away from their computer and spend more time composing an email or more thorough Teams message, or digging for answers ourselves instead of quickly reaching out as a result.

    Organizations should be able to decide whether they want the "idle" status to kick in for their users if Teams is inactive OR the computer is inactive/locked after a period of time.

    Leona

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-08-31T15:13:38+00:00

    Does anyone know if there is a planned fix for this?  My company has just recently required us to start using teams, and this is really detrimental to leadership relationships, as it looks like I'm away constantly, even though I am here working.  

    I've telecommuted for years, and used two or three different messaging systems, and none of them have ever had an issue like this around status.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-09-01T13:37:23+00:00

    Has this been fixed? Seems like a simple request for something extremely important. I have been active on my computer for the last hour (630 am to 730 am). I have no meetings on my calendar but Teams still shows me as away. I tried to manually change to active but it won't change from yellow to green. Even if I click on different sidebars within teams it still shows me as away. Please give this issue some attention - everyone is now working from home and using Teams as our communication service.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-09-02T20:31:16+00:00

    I am having the same issue; very frustrating.  I am here working and Team show me AWAY.

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-09-08T19:23:09+00:00

    Same issue as well with my company. This is honestly ridiculous Microsoft hasn't fixed this in two months.

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