Notify when available issue

[OAsys]

Why is "notify when available" no longer working for external contacts in Microsoft Teams. Up until recently I was able to right click on an external contact and tag them for a change of status. I can still do it on internal contacts.

[#2]

Hi @OAsys

You should be able to do this and I have testing it this morning: both by right clicking on the contact and selecting Notify when Available or by adding the guests via settings > notifications > manage notifications (at the bottom of the notifications options). It isn't currently available for federated contacts which have been added to contacts. I am using desktop client 1.2.00.24753. Can you get them on the Web App as opposed to the Desktop?

Has anything been modified in your environment which is related to guests? Can you still message guests, add them to Teams etc? If everything else has remained the same I would raise a ticket with Microsoft if a functionality has suddenly become unavailable.

Hope that answers your question

Best, Chris

[#3]

@Christopher Hoard 

Thx for the feedback Chris. 

I have Microsoft Teams Version 1.2.00.22654 (64 bit). It was last updated on 30/08/19.

It does not work on either the Desktop App or the Web App.

When I attempt to do it via "settings > notifications > manage notifications" and enter the contact or email address, it only displays internal contacts. 

I can message external contacts and call them.

Another interesting point was, when I attempted to select "Notify when available" for the external contact recently, the option was displayed momentarily, then disappeared. When I tried again for the same contact it was not displayed at all. I then tried another external contact and it was again displayed momentarily before disappearing. Also "Notify when available" does display for external contacts where "Status unknown" (white dot on contact icon), which I suspect will provide someone with a clue to resolving why this is happening.

[#4]

Hi @OAsys

For sure. As its an issue on both the desktop and web apps, I would likely raise this as a ticket via the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre. There isn't anything wrong with Teams according to the admin centre. However, I find it interesting that it should only search for internal contacts in the manage notifications - so prior to raising a ticket I would work through this to make sure that all the guest settings at the tenant level are as they ought to be here

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/guest-access-checklist

You may spot something which isn't right. For example, if I were guessing it sounds like you may have guest access locked down (you can set notifications on guests) whereas federated contacts (contacts you chat with in other Teams tenants) you can't do this. In this scenario you would only be able to have notifications on internal users.

Let me know how it goes. Raising it to Microsoft is probably going be the solution here and then we'll get the root cause of this. I have checked several other tenants since and none are having this issue.

Best, Chris