Forum Discussion
Notify when available feature in NEW Teams app
If I would get a notification as soon as someone wants to monitor my status and I can prevent that, I'm in.
In the last iteration it wasn't like that and therefore terrible. I am convinced that good modern collaboration also requires good communication. Nobody dies if you simply write a message to the person you want to get in touch with saying "please contact me about topic xy as soon as you have time" - it can be that simple and collaboration at eye level is the result.
most people here just seem to want to monitor whether someone is working or not, which is a huge problem and stalking and also a very sensitive legal issue in terms of employee monitoring.
I don't know why you say 'most people here just seem to want to monitor whether someone is working or not' when a large number of people have explained that it's in fact the opposite, and people want to maximise their own time, rather than spending time checking and checking whether someone is available or not.
You're also not taking into account time differences for global companies, where I might be pinging someone in the middle of their night, rather than being reminded that it's now 9am in Hong Kong or Dallas, so they're on-line and I can catch them as their day starts. And of course, neurodivergences - one of the biggest things ND people were concerned about in my company, was 'bothering' people when they aren't available, and if they don't have a 'notify when available', they'll either keep checking - which ruins their ability to focus - and very probably go off and do something else and forget about it. I think you're making a big assumption, which may be based on your own experiences, and while I'm sure some want to monitor their employees, it's not 'most people' at all. Teams presence is not a valid metric for availability monitoring and I hope most companies know they'd be on shaky ground if they try to pursue such on that basis.
It's all a moot point really, because it doesn't look like it's coming back anyway. It's more frustrating how Microsoft can just ignore so many voices!
I admit that this is a bit too short-sighted and generalized, but from my point of view there are many ways to achieve the same thing without getting notifications as soon as someone is online, simply by communicating. There seems to be a lack of knowledge about the communication options that Teams offers.
from my point of view, there is simply no other use for such tools, as there are always better and, above all, nicer options than simple monitoring.
No one has to check if someone is available if you simply leave a message asking to be contacted. this way, they can decide and plan when they have time for your request.
I work with many colleagues across different time zones, in Teams it shows whether the people are before or after my time, so I can use scheduled messages to choose a time when my counterpart is sure not to be disturbed in the middle of the night (apart from the fact that something goes wrong if you don't have your notifications under control and are woken up by your teams in the middle of the night, but that's another topic).I think we will have to respectfully agree to disagree. I do see your point, but I'm coming from a place where users don't know and don't want to know how to use these things effectively and almost actively refuse to manage their notifications. We try, but some are thousands of miles away with a different culture and management structure, and there's only so much we can do. Some are sitting opposite and still complain about things they could manage. It's a means to an end for the job they actually do (which is nothing to do with IT or technology) - and many of our users are externals, so we cannot manage the Teams settings in terms of working hours showing, etc.
If all the users had your attitude, that would be fine and it would work, but they don't. All that happens when we try and educate them on managing their settings is that they'll complain to their bosses that they keep getting woken in the middle of the night by people asking them to get in touch when they're free, and because they're the big earners, that'll be that. More hassle on our side to deal with when there was a way that was working perfectly beforehand.
Also, it's caused me so much hassle moving to Teams 2.0 because of over 500 people asking for this feature back and using the lack of it as an excuse to not move from Classic. I've had to finally force the issue, which I didn't want to do. I don't think they're bringing it back anyway.W1lko That is such a lazy complaint; if I don't want to be awakened, I simply turn off the notifications. These people can too. Log out, turn off the sound....several options to fix that petty problem. However, limiting the ability for everyone else to perform their jobs efficiently during working hours seems like a drastic fix for a non-problem and I'm disappointed that Microsoft, in it's infinite wisdom, would give in to petty complaints of people who don't want to be found and punish the vast majority of people doing their best to do their jobs well.
- I couldn't agree more with you 🙂
