Is there a way to put myself on vacation in Teams?

[Rod Falanga]

Recently we started to use Microsoft Teams at work. I love it. I've also added Teams to my Samsung Galaxy S10.

I'm on vacation for the rest of the week. However, I'm still getting notifications from Teams as my coworkers post messages there. Is there a way for me to place myself into a "On vacation" status, much like is done with Outlook, so that I won't get notifications on my phone? Or do I have to do that on the Teams app on my phone?

[#2]

@Rod Falanga Set your status to do not disturb while on vacation and then set your status message to "Out of office returning on X." We don't have the mobile app deployed yet, but it should respect the dnd settings.

This might be a cool feature to have a vacation status where it just makes sure that you go through all these steps though.

[#3]

Hi @Rod Falanga,

There are multiple user voices which has been raised for that exact scenario

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/38255572-mute-notifications-wh...

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33047629-notification-scenario...

Have you checked the Notification settings on the device? The reason I ask is because on IOS you have the ability to set both quiet hours and quiet days (accessed through quiet hours) which mutes all notifications. You could even run through and turn the notifications off manually for a period.

I would imagine that the functionality is forthcoming where you can set vacation and it mutes notifications across all devices. I would vote on the uservoices and push them up the agenda

I would also recommending setting a status message in the options too on either the desktop client or the mobile which will notify people your away if they message you or mention you in a channel.

Hope that answers your question!

Best, Chris

[#4]

Also if you put a OOO in outlook, this will be shown in Teams too

[#5 · Accepted solution]

Your best bet is a combo solution here. Set Automatic Replies via mobile Outlook and set your Teams to Quiet Hours for the vacation. This will put your status as Out of Office to everyone and show your message to them in Teams when they try to mention or chat with you and also suppress notifications.

Hope this helps. 

P.S. I wrote a blog awhile back about some presence updates and it has a link to the original Out of Office setup if interested: https://webbtech365.blogspot.com/2019/02/updated-teams-out-of-office-presence.html

[#6]

@Chris WebbI really appreciate your excellent discussion on Out of Office in the blog post you did! Excellent!! 

I've got a follow-up question for you. We do use Microsoft Exchange Server, so OWA is involved, as well as the Outlook desktop app. But I'm wondering if the version of Exchange is significant? I ask because even though we've got Office 365 for Business at work, we do not have a current version of Exchange Server. We're using Exchange 2013. Back in 2013 Microsoft Teams wasn't even a gleam in the eye  of the engineering group that developed Teams. Given the fact that we're using an old version of Exchange doe that mean what you've described in your blog post will not work?

[#7]

Unfortunately no, not from what I have seen. There isn't any documentation about it anywhere, and the information I've heard and seen is that the auto presence doesn't work when it comes to Exchange on-prem.

When it comes to hybrid scenario with Teams, Exchange 2016 CU3 is recommended at a minimum to get most of the features allowed.

Article about Exchange interaction with Teams: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/exchange-teams-interact

[#8]

Oh well. It is what it is and I've got to work with the hand I'm dealt.

[#9]

In that case, setting custom status message from inside of Teams (Mobile or Desktop) is your best option. You can choose to show people the message in the status similar to how Out of Office works and set an end time. Then set your Quiet Hours to suppress notifications and you should be good. Should give near similar experience.

[#10]

Very needed feature. I signout from teams during my vacation to avoid work turbulence on my relax days ;)

[#11]

@Rod Falanga 2023 and still no easy implementation of a logical feature :

I'm OOO - Teams and office (android) get that status in sync - and notifications for both apps are then turned off during that time.

How complicated is that for Microsoft to implement ?