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Using Teams for employee availability dashboard

Copper Contributor

Hi,

 

We use teams extensively for employee communication. I know that Teams offers a lot of additional functionality through add-on apps, but I don't really have any experience in this area, and was hoping that someone could offer advice.

 

Our issue is as follows; currently when an employee becomes available for a work assignment they message one of the project-managers. Their are many employees, multiple Project-managers, and we have no good way of keeping on-top of who is currently working, who is waiting for work, and who has just been assigned work.

We would like some sort of dashboard that will show project-managers employee status; busy, available, available soon (and perhaps more info.)

We could use a sharepoint excel table, or loop component, but we don't want the employees to see the status of all other employees, this info. should only be visible to the managers. The employee should only be able to update their own status.

 

Their are probably many ways to create this (including a custom-built solution), but is their any way to use existing functionality built into teams to implement this? As mentioned, we are already using Teams all the time, so it would be real efficient for us to have this integrated instead of bringing in a whole new platform.

 

Any advice appreciated.

10 Replies
best response confirmed by ys-315 (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hi @ys-315 ,

 

You can  create a dashboard in Microsoft Teams for tracking employee statuses.

Create a SharePoint list in SharePoint to track employee statuses, including columns for name, status, and additional information. Set permissions to restrict access to project managers.

 

Then ,Add the SharePoint list as a tab in your desired Teams channel by selecting "SharePoint" from the "+" icon and choosing the list from your SharePoint site. Configure list views and filters in SharePoint to display only the logged-in user's status. Create additional views for different criteria like availability.

Inform all the employees to update their own status either by accessing the SharePoint list.

 

By integrating Teams and SharePoint, project managers will be able to access a private dashboard in Teams to view employee statuses. 

 

 

 

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@Deleted 

It looks like this is the solution, I figured there was someone to do it through the Microsoft platform, but didn't know about SharePoint lists. Thank you for your clear and detailed answer.

"Configure list views and filters in SharePoint to display only the logged-in user's status. Create additional views for different criteria like availability." Can anyone give any insight as to how to go about this. I believe I have everything correct so far. I have not added our employees to the Teams channel yet as I am still working on the list. I do have the employee names listed but they are not really in a format for a filter to be able to know what to display for them if I have it set to only display their own name. I hope I am explaining that in a way that is understandable. Any help is greatly appreciated!

I'm very interested in the details as well. A dashboard of some sorts is exactly what I am looking for, though I'm unfamiliar with building lists in SharePoint. Some examples/pointers would be great to get a handle on how to set this up. Nothing is looking terribly obvious to me as a starting point.

So I'll give you my general rundown of what I created to suit my needs:

****disclaimer: this is all self taught and university of google knowledge. I am by no means an expert in any of this and this took me quite a while to work through. 

 

1 - Create a group in outlook. (you don't have to add users until you're ready) 

 

2 - Once created go to the top of the group header in your outlook inbox. Click the three dots and go to "Site" with the SharePoint icon. 

Maggala_0-1704404554420.png

 

3 - From the SharePoint site in the bottom right hand corner a teams banner will pop up asking if you want to add Teams. Go through the steps and you'll add a shortcut to all folders in the SharePoint page. 

Maggala_1-1704404630709.png

 

4 - From the General tab in the Teams group you will see a Lists tab at the top of the page. It will allow you to create one from scratch or upload one using Excel. (if you don't see a Lists tab you may have to go to the + to add it. (((READ NEXT STEP BEFORE YOU CREATE A LIST))))

Maggala_2-1704404746150.png

 

 

5 - If you have an excel sheet with users on it already with their name and e-mail address, that is the best place to start. To import a user list from an excel sheet the information you are importing must be inside a table in the spreadsheet. (I would honestly play around with the Lists application a little bit before you actually create one from the Teams group. It took me a lot of getting used to and learning what types of columns could do what. If you do have a user list in excel I would import it from the lists application or web browser outside of Teams first to use it as practice.) 

Maggala_3-1704405383418.png

 

When importing into Lists - it will ask you what type of column each column is. 

First column with Users name will be a Title and the 2nd column with the e-mail address will be a person or group. Change the other columns to "Do not import." You can add other columns with information once you get the initial name and e-mail address imported. 

Maggala_4-1704405663386.png

 

6 - Once you have the list up and running and have information that you want to include set up... I can include further steps depending on how you want the list to function for users. 

 

Thanks! Basically, what I'm after is something that seems like it should be very simple. I want my dashboard/view to be an overview page where all employees are listed, and people can go to quickly see everyone's Teams status in one view.

Edit: What seems to be stumping me is having the presence from Teams display. I have a view created in a way I like, but despite the Person or Group column having 'Name (with presence)' selected in the Show field dropdown, no presence is actually displayed.

I think I just discovered why this isn't working. I stumbled across this blurb:
Note: The presence status, formerly available with Name (with presence), is not available in modern browsers. Your organization may choose to make presence available by following the steps in Display a classic SharePoint site in Internet Explorer 10 document mode.

@Maggala 

what is the next step?

The next step would depend on how you want the list to function. If you want all users to be able to see each others 'status' and other information. Essentially you would give users access to this list and they would go in and change their own status and it would show when it was modified in the modified column. You can add a notes column so they can leave notes or any specifics about what they're working on. You can set the list to save up to a certain amount of versions (I can't remember what they cap it at the moment) so that you can see all the edit history made to each users 'line'. You can write flows for notifications when a certain user changes their status or for a summary of daily status changes. I know bts0004 wanted their Team presence to show, and hopefully they got that figured out. I did not incorporate my users Teams status because they just don't use it as proficiently as they should.

We heavily rely on Teams, since most of us work remotely, so integration with Teams presence is a must-have for us. In the end, I ended up purchasing a license for Simple In/Out, with the sole intention of the dashboard available to us with Teams presence integration. They are very reasonably priced, and for the amount of time I've spent banging my head on the desk over this, it is worth it. Hopefully Microsoft improves in this area at some point. Having a dashboard view of users doesn't seem like an unreasonable request.

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by ys-315 (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hi @ys-315 ,

 

You can  create a dashboard in Microsoft Teams for tracking employee statuses.

Create a SharePoint list in SharePoint to track employee statuses, including columns for name, status, and additional information. Set permissions to restrict access to project managers.

 

Then ,Add the SharePoint list as a tab in your desired Teams channel by selecting "SharePoint" from the "+" icon and choosing the list from your SharePoint site. Configure list views and filters in SharePoint to display only the logged-in user's status. Create additional views for different criteria like availability.

Inform all the employees to update their own status either by accessing the SharePoint list.

 

By integrating Teams and SharePoint, project managers will be able to access a private dashboard in Teams to view employee statuses. 

 

 

 

If I have answered your question, please mark your post as Solved

If you like my response, please give it a Like :smile:

Appreciate your Kudos! Proud to contribute! 🙂

 

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