Forum Discussion
Teams availability status - admin way to manage this?
We have some staff here who seem to be abusing the Teams status feature: they indicate they are "available" when they are away from their desk/computer. Management here as inquired if there is a way to enforce the Teams feature where it normally shows inactive after a few minutes. Is this possible?
3 Replies
- TomCSBCopper Contributor
So the answer is no then? I am aware of what Microsoft recommends but reality is usually different than recommendations. I cannot detect jigglers of course but a policy should be available for admins on this. When we used Skype I could control this so this an admin tool lost. Thanks for the comments though.
Thank you for the insight, VasilMichev. I completely agree with your point. Presence in Microsoft Teams was never designed to be a reliable indicator of productivity or whether someone is physically at their desk. Even if administrative controls existed to enforce inactivity timers, there would still be multiple ways to simulate activity on a device, such as mouse movement or keyboard input.
In most environments, presence should be treated only as a collaboration signal rather than a monitoring mechanism. If the concern is around availability or accountability, it is usually more effective to address it through internal policies and team management practices instead of trying to enforce it technically through Teams.
This is also aligned with Microsoft’s guidance that Teams presence is a user-controlled indicator intended to facilitate communication, not monitoring.
You should not rely on this as an indicator, even if there was something you can toggle on the admin side, or even the client, you won't be able to stop methods that emulate mouse movement, keyboard usage and so on.