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
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.