Microsoft Teams Tips
Setting Your Status

Microsoft Teams Tips: Setting Your Status

Your status in Microsoft Teams is an incredibly valuable tool–especially if you take the time to use it to full advantage. However, if you’re not familiar with the status feature, you may find yourself with a lot of questions. How can you quickly change your status in Microsoft Teams so that people will know if you are busy or away? Can you customize your status message? How? Take a look at these basic steps to get a better feel for how to manage your status in Microsoft Teams.

What Is Your Status in Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams offers a “status” option that is clearly visible to all of your teammates. Your status can let team members know what you’re currently doing and whether you are currently available. You might, for example, set it to let your colleagues know that:

• You’re busy and should only be interrupted with serious concerns or inquiries
• You’re working from a different time zone, which means you may not be available at your usual hours
• You’re currently available and can respond quickly to a chat request if needed

How to Check Status

Hover over a teammate’s name. You will see by a green check that a team member is available. You can do it when looking at group chats or when checking the members of a specific team, depending on what you need to accomplish and how you’re interacting with those team members.

How to Change Your Status

Microsoft Teams is automatically synced with your calendar, so if you’ve got a meeting scheduled or another task clearly identified in your calendar, your status will change automatically. This is an incredibly convenient feature when you’re trying to

Click your profile picture at the top of the window. On mobile, you’ll need to click the menu icon, which looks like a hamburger, at the top of the screen. You’ll have the option to choose the status option that works for you.

• Available: you’re currently available and don’t have anything major going on, so you’re available for a meeting or chat.
• Busy: You’re currently focusing on a task, but you do want notifications to continue to pop up.
• Do Not Disturb: You’re in the middle of something else entirely or really need to keep your attention where it is, so you want to temporarily disable all notifications. You can also set up Do Not Disturb when you need to share your screen for a presentation.
• Be Right Back: You’ve stepped away from your computer for a moment, but you’ll be back soon. This is a great solution for remote work.
• Appear Away: Lets your team know that you aren’t currently available, but still allows you to work in Microsoft Teams or keep it open.
• Offline: Appears when you aren’t logged in to teams.
• Appear Offline: Makes it look like you’re offline, even if you’re signed in to Teams.

You also have other status options, including a status message. A custom status message can be very helpful, especially if you want it to show when people message you. It can, for example, set to Out-of-Office when you want to share that message when someone tries to chat with you in Teams. Furthermore, you can set an Out-of-Office email and email the same message to your team members or to anyone else who wants to connect with you when you’re not currently at work.

Managing your status in Microsoft Teams is a highly effective tool for letting team members know when you are available to communicate–and it’s just one of the many tools that Teams places at your disposal. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you utilize Microsoft Teams more effectively.