Microsoft Teams question

Here we go again :rolleyes:

So, today…I set my status to “busy” as I’m working through a project, and after a few minutes, my status changed to “away.” My Teams screen is open. So, unless I’m sending messages in the Teams chat or actively using Teams in some way, it sets the status as “away?”

:frown:
 
wegs said:
Here we go again :rolleyes:

So, today…I set my status to “busy” as I’m working through a project, and after a few minutes, my status changed to “away.” My Teams screen is open. So, unless I’m sending messages in the Teams chat or actively using Teams in some way, it sets the status as “away?”

:frown:
Click to expand...

In trying to replicate your issue, I found something else. I set my Teams status to "busy" and it looks like Outlook writes that as "Busy - free for next 8 hours". I googled "free for next 8 hours" and it appears to be something with the calendar. But I'll ignore that for now and see what else I can find.
 
Neddy Bate said:
In trying to replicate your issue, I found something else. I set my Teams status to "busy" and it looks like Outlook writes that as "Busy - free for next 8 hours". I googled "free for next 8 hours" and it appears to be something with the calendar. But I'll ignore that for now and see what else I can find.
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I just noticed that, too. Thanks for the tip, I never noticed the tag line in Outlook matching the status change in Teams. I'm kinda over Teams, and just want to be free. lol o_O
 
wegs said:
I just noticed that, too. Thanks for the tip, I never noticed the tag line in Outlook matching the status change in Teams. I'm kinda over Teams, and just want to be free. lol o_O
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Does yours say "free for the next 8 hours" also? I can't believe Microsoft thinks that is acceptable. Mine is not even synchronized to the clock, it just says 8 hours right up until the moment I'm walking out the door. Incredible.

For me, adding a custom status message does not change the "free for the next 8 hours" thing either. Wow, nice job MS. /s
 
Anyway, I can't seem to replicate your issue, it seems mine stays "busy" as long as I have the Teams window open on the screen (not full screen, but in a small window).
 
Omg, think I figured this out! Okay, so sometimes I’ll send invites from Outlook to clients, but if they choose a different date or they decline, I don’t cancel it out of Teams. (Another lovely feature of Office 365 is that if you send an Outlook invitation, it automatically enters it in your Teams calendar.)

So what is happening is that those calendar invitations are popping up and changing my status at times to “in a meeting,” because they’re still showing on my Teams calendar. So it’s throwing off my status every so often even though I manually reset my status to “available.” I think that’s the issue.

So the solution is to delete those calendar invitations that are in my Teams calendar that are serving as placeholders, at this point. I’m going to pay closer attention to this next week and see if deleting these invitations resolves the Teams status issue.

Regarding what you’re saying about the “8 hours” tag showing in Outlook. Well, if you were scheduled to be in a Teams meeting, it wouldn’t show you as “available” in Outlook, so that’s one good thing.

I guess. :rolleye:
 
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wegs said:
Omg, think I figured this out! Okay, so sometimes I’ll send invites from Outlook to clients, but if they choose a different date or they decline, I don’t cancel it out of Teams. (Another lovely feature of Office 365 is that if you send an Outlook invitation, it automatically enters it in your Teams calendar.)

So what is happening is that those calendar invitations are popping up and changing my status at times to “in a meeting,” because they’re still showing on my Teams calendar. So it’s throwing off my status every so often even though I manually reset my status to “available.” I think that’s the issue.

So the solution is to delete those calendar invitations that are in my Teams calendar that are serving as placeholders, at this point. I’m going to pay closer attention to this next week and see if deleting these invitations resolves the Teams status issue.

Regarding what you’re saying about the “8 hours” tag showing in Outlook. Well, if you were scheduled to be in a Teams meeting, it wouldn’t show you as “available” in Outlook, so that’s one good thing.

I guess. :rolleye:
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Aha! Good to know. However, Teams changing your status to "in a meeting" sounds like a different issue, because the other issue was Teams/Outlook changing your status to "away". For the "away" issue, all the stuff we learned yesterday about the Outlook & Teams windows having to be open on the screen still applies.
 
Neddy Bate said:
For the "away" issue, all the stuff we learned yesterday about the Outlook & Teams windows having to be open on the screen still applies.
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Oh yea, that’s right.

I forgot to keep Outlook open alongside Teams, for part of today.
 
wegs said:
Oh yea, that’s right.

I forgot to keep Outlook open alongside Teams, for part of today.
Click to expand...

Do you mean you forgot to keep Teams open alongside Outlook? Because I think you can minimize Outlook and use Teams full screen, but not the other way around.

Think of it as Outlook telling on you behind your back, saying "Hey Teams, it looks like wegs likes me more than you, na na na na na!" And then Teams says "Well, in that case I'm going to kick that status to the curb!"
 
Neddy Bate said:
Do you mean you forgot to keep Teams open alongside Outlook? Because I think you can minimize Outlook and use Teams full screen, but not the other way around.

Think of it as Outlook telling on you behind your back, saying "Hey Teams, it looks like wegs likes me more than you, na na na na na!" And then Teams says "Well, in that case I'm going to kick that status to the curb!"
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That sounds about right. lol!

I actually have the Teams screen in full view and outlook opened in the background, so…

As I’m typing this reply using my phone, Teams just switched my status to away and the screen is open full view. *smh*
 
This reminds me of a book Bill Gates wrote decades ago describing his "smart house" and features for the future. It solves (IMO) a lot of problems that don't need to be solved and creates more than it solves.

He described a refrigerator that knows what you have inside, how low you are getting on each item and it automatically reorders as you are getting low.

I don't want that from my refrigerator. I don't even want my house door lock and my car door lock automatically locking themselves after 30 seconds (so I shut that "feature" off).

With the refrigerator scenario it would be OK to reorder if you actually want more of an item but not everything in a refrigerator are items that you continually want more off, some items may register "low" because you seldom use it but the refrigerator will order more potentially way before you actually want more.

I'm actually cool with going to the grocery store and buying what I want as I want/need it. Reading how "integrated" Outlook is with everything else, that can be a problem when you just want to receive email and don't want it being linked to everything else, telling people you are "busy", "away", "on vacation", "sleeping" :) etc.

It's probably helpful to you since you probably do want several items integrated and this is just the price that you pay.
 
Seattle said:
This reminds me of a book Bill Gates wrote decades ago describing his "smart house" and features for the future. It solves (IMO) a lot of problems that don't need to be solved and creates more than it solves.

He described a refrigerator that knows what you have inside, how low you are getting on each item and it automatically reorders as you are getting low.

I don't want that from my refrigerator. I don't even want my house door lock and my car door lock automatically locking themselves after 30 seconds (so I shut that "feature" off).

With the refrigerator scenario it would be OK to reorder if you actually want more of an item but not everything in a refrigerator are items that you continually want more off, some items may register "low" because you seldom use it but the refrigerator will order more potentially way before you actually want more.

I'm actually cool with going to the grocery store and buying what I want as I want/need it. Reading how "integrated" Outlook is with everything else, that can be a problem when you just want to receive email and don't want it being linked to everything else, telling people you are "busy", "away", "on vacation", "sleeping" :) etc.

It's probably helpful to you since you probably do want several items integrated and this is just the price that you pay.
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Lol!! You’ve read my mind, Seattle. It feels intrusive. Microsoft may need a lesson or two in “boundaries.” ;)
 
My Teams would keep my status as busy/in a meeting until I manually changed it, after leaving a meeting. Then I went into my Outlook calendar, double-clicked one of my recurring meeting entries, and selected to edit every instance of the meeting. In the edit screen, I set it to show me as available. Now, when these meetings happen, it shows me as busy until the meeting ends. Then it automatically shows me as available again.

I also changed the time I leave work, so it only shows "available until..." to the correct time. I believe that's in a work time tab in calendar.
 
How about someone tries to contact you and if you don't answer immediately...you're busy...:)

I now love the fact that I can leave my keys in my pocket and lock my house door by touch, open my car door by touch and start my car by touch. However years ago Ford (I think) came out with cars that still required a key to start and still had a keyed lock on the door in addition to an ugly keypad on the door.

You could get into your car by memorizing some numerical code but you still had to have a key to start the car so ... what was the point? Now, many years later keyless is great.

That's what Microsoft products are like. They suck but maybe they'll actually be good at some point in the future. Probably not though. They didn't think the smart phone was going to catch on but did think my refrigerator example sounded like a good idea. :)
 
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Vociferous said:
My Teams would keep my status as busy/in a meeting until I manually changed it, after leaving a meeting. Then I went into my Outlook calendar, double-clicked one of my recurring meeting entries, and selected to edit every instance of the meeting. In the edit screen, I set it to show me as available. Now, when these meetings happen, it shows me as busy until the meeting ends. Then it automatically shows me as available again.

I also changed the time I leave work, so it only shows "available until..." to the correct time. I believe that's in a work time tab in calendar.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tips. I wasn’t aware that you can edit the recurring meeting entries in that way. I’ll try it!

I don’t care so much about the “available until…” notation since I log out completely anyway when I’m finished with work, and appear “offline” to coworkers.
 
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Seattle said:
How about someone tries to contact you and if you don't answer immediately...you're busy...:)
Click to expand...
I know, right? There are a few at my firm who take Teams so literally and you feel “pressured” to keep your status updated but others don’t care. I’m in the latter group. To be honest, there are some that overuse Teams when an email would have been more appropriate.
 
One more minor sticking point - I’ve noticed that when your status shows as “available” in Teams under “Chat”, you may appear as “busy” or “away” in your Teams calendar entries (to others). I don’t care about that mismatch too much, but it’s still odd.
 
We had a Teams videoconference today, and after it was over, my status remained available (green). I had the focus on my Outlook screen for a long time, but the status did not change to away (yellow). So, now I have no idea what is causing the issue that wegs originally reported. I did see some other people' status change to yellow, like they timed out? I have no idea...

Maybe actually doing the videoconference helped cement my status? I had Teams open to the calendar in the background the whole time I was in Outlook.
 
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