Forum Discussion
User's Status Setting Should be More than just a Suggestion
Setting Status in Skype for Business for Mac (e.g. busy, away) is just treated as a suggestion and routinely changed by the program with zero warning. If I set my status to available any then read a document on my system without making any input for several minutes Skype automatically switches to "Away". If I set my status to busy and then go into and finish a meeting on my calendar Skype switches back to "Available". There's a setting for "Automatic", Microsoft! If I wanted you changing my status randomly I'd use that! When I set a status, that's the status I want, stop changing it.
version 16.13.184 for Mac
3 Replies
There are a couple of settings that might help, and I'll prefix this with these settings exist in the Windows client, but I am fairly sure they also exist on the Mac.
re: You are inactive in Skype for Business for some time and the status switches to Away.
If you go into Settings | Status there are two settings which control how long your computer has been idle before SfB shows your status to "Inactive", and another to change your status from Inactive to "Away" after x number of minutes.
I do find the defaults are too low so I always increase mine.
In terms of the status switch after a meeting, that would be frustrating (this doesn't happen on the Windows client). You can use https://office365.uservoice.com/ or https://www.skypefeedback.com/ to log this improvement and/or vote on the priority.
Hope that partially helps :-)
Curtis
Thanks for the suggestion but if those exist on the Mac client I can't find them (just dug through preferences again). Seems to be a Windows only thing.
Microsoft: care to weigh in here? Also, I'm being converted from busy to available after meetings end as well, doesn't seem to be a setting even in Windows to fix that. How about a setting for "do as I have instructed via the UI and don't try to be so smart that you screw it all up"?
Hi, yes, I verified it does not exist on the Mac client and there are many people as frustrated as you are: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Mac-Insider/SfB-Mac-Away-status-time-setting/td-p/61991 and https://www.skypefeedback.com/forums/299910--recently-released/suggestions/17066767-show-me-as-away-when-my-computer-has-been-idle-for. Do vote, Microsoft does use this as input into feature lists and they are rapidly evolving the Mac client.
I see there is a newer January release to the Mac client (Version 16.14.0.163 at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54108) but it doesn't address this issue. Although, interestingly enough it does address a workaround for admins to "...increase the auto-accept period on Mac client" so that after the 5 min idle time, the Mac client won't return a "We couldn't send this message" if Conversation History is turned off.
FYI, to clarify, on the Windows client, it will return to the status you had set before a meeting, after the meeting has ended. E.g. I had mine set to Busy tonight and returned to that status after meeting.
