User presence in Teams

Presence is part of a user’s profile in Microsoft Teams (and throughout Microsoft 365 or Office 365) that indicates the user’s current availability and status to other users. By default, anyone in your organization using Teams can see (in nearly real time) if other users are available online.

Teams presence in Outlook is supported on the Outlook 2013 desktop app and later.

Presence states in Teams

User configuredApp configured
Solid green check mark, indicates Presence Available AvailableSolid green check mark, indicates Presence Available Available
Open green check mark, indicates available oof Available, Out of Office
Solid red circle, indicates Busy BusySolid red circle, indicates Busy Busy
Solid red circle, indicates Busy in a call On a call
Solid red circle, indicates Busy in a meeting In a meeting
Open red circle, indicates Busy On a call, out of office
Red circle with white line, indicates Do Not Disturb Do not disturb
Red circle with white line, indicates Presenting Presenting
Red circle with white line, indicates Focusing Focusing
Yellow clock icon, indicates away AwayYellow clock icon, indicates away Away
Yellow clock icon, indicates away Away Last Seen time
Yellow clock icon, indicates away, be right back Be right back
Yellow clock icon, indicates away, off work Off Work
Gray circle with x, indicates Offline Offline
Open gray circle, indicates status unknown Status unknown
Open red circle with diagonal line, indicates blocked Blocked
Purple circle with arrow, indicates Out of office Out of Office

App-configured presence states are based on user activity (Available, Away), Outlook calendar states (In a meeting), or Teams app states (In a call, Presenting).

Your current presence state changes to Away when you lock your computer or when it enters idle or sleep mode. On mobile, your presence status changes to Away whenever the Teams app is in the background.

Users receive all chat messages sent to them in Teams regardless of their presence state. If a user is offline when someone sends them a message, the chat message appears in Teams the next time the user is online. If a user is in Do not disturb, the user will still get chat messages but banner notifications aren’t displayed.

Users receive calls in all presence states except for Do not disturb, in which incoming calls go to voicemail. If the recipient blocked the caller, the call won’t be delivered and the caller sees the recipient’s presence as Offline.

Users can add people to their priority access list by going to Settings > Privacy in Teams. People who have priority access can contact the user even when the user is in Do not disturb.

Admin settings in Teams compared to Skype for Business

The following admin settings Skype for Business are different in Teams:

  • In Teams, presence sharing is always enabled for users in the organization. Privacy (where you define who can see presence) configuration is not available in Teams.
  • Presence sharing with everyone (including Federated services) is always enabled for users in Teams. Their contact list (if they had one in Skype for Business) is visible under Chat > Contacts or under Calls > Contacts.
  • Client Do Not Disturb and Breakthrough features are always enabled for users in Teams.
  • Calendar (includes out of office and other calendar information) integration is always enabled for users when Teams is integrated with Outlook.
  • The Last seen or Away since indicator is always enabled for users in Teams if the organization also uses Skype for Business.

 Note

The ability of a Teams admin to customize these settings is not currently supported.

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