User presence in Teams
Presence is part of a user's profile in Microsoft Teams (and throughout Microsoft 365). Presence indicates the user's current availability and status to other users. By default, anyone in any organization using Teams can see (in nearly real time) if other users are available online.
For details about Teams user profiles on different platforms, see also Teams features by platform.
Note
Teams respects your privacy configuration so if you have enabled the privacy mode, your presence isn't visible to people outside the organization.
Presence states in Teams
| User-configured | App-configured |
|---|---|
 Available |
Available |
 Available, Out of Office. Note: Out of office is automatically set for the periods of time where the user sets "automatic replies." If the user is using Teams during these periods of time, the user's presence is shown alongside the Out of Office indicator. |
|
 Busy |
Busy |
| In a call |
|
| In a meeting |
|
 In a call, out of office |
|
 Do not disturb |
|
| Presenting |
|
| Focusing. Focus happens when the users schedule focus time in MyAnalytics/Insights in their calendars. |
|
 Away |
Away |
| Away Last Seen time |
|
| Be right back |
|
 Appear offline |
Offline. When users aren't logged in on any of their devices for a few minutes, they appear offline. |
 Status unknown |
|
 Out of Office. Out of Office is used when an automatic reply is set or your calendar has an event that's set to show as "Out of Office." |
The order of statuses, from most available to least available, is:
- Available
- Busy
- In a meeting
- In a call
- Do not disturb
- Be right back
- Away
- Offline
Note
For users that have their mailbox hosted on-prem, presence delays of one hour (maximum) are expected.
Automatic status settings
Normally, a user's status is based on user activity (whether they're Available or Away); on the state of the Teams app (e.g. whether they're In a call or Presenting); and on their Outlook calendar (e.g. whether they're In a meeting).
A user who isn't logged in to Teams on any device is Offline. Otherwise, their presence depends on whether they're logged in on a computer or on a mobile device:
- On a computer, a user's presence becomes Away automatically if they're inactive for a few minutes or if the computer is locked; and it becomes Offline when the computer enters sleep mode.
- On a mobile device, a user's presence becomes Away whenever the Teams app is in the background, and then becomes Offline after 24 hours of inactivity.
If a user is logged in to Teams on two or more devices (e.g. on both a desktop computer and on a phone), then the device where they were active most recently determines their presence. For example, if a user is logged in on both a computer and a mobile device, and they're currently working on the computer, their presence will come from the computer. When they disconnect on the computer, their presence will then come from the status of the mobile device.
Call queues can use presence to route calls to agents. For more information, see Create a Call Queue in Microsoft Teams.
Manual status settings by users
Users can manually select a status as follows:
Users in a call or in a meeting can select any status and it lasts for the duration of the call or the meeting.
Otherwise, users can select any status that is less available than the automatically calculated status. (For example, if a user's calculated status is Do not disturb, they could choose a status of Away but not Available.)
Users can set a duration for the presence that they set manually. If a user doesn't set a duration, their presence remains manually set as follows:
- Indefinitely if it's Appear offline
- For 1 day if it's Busy or Do not disturb
- For 7 days if it's any other status
Notifications and Do not disturb
Users receive all chat messages regardless of their presence. If a user is offline when someone sends them a message, the chat message appears in Teams the next time they come online. If a user is in a Do not disturb state, they still receive chat messages, but banner notifications aren't displayed.
Users receive calls in all presence states except for Do not disturb, in which case incoming calls go to voicemail.
Users can add people to a priority access list by going to Settings > Privacy in Teams. If they do, messages from these people will caused banner notifications to be displayed as normal for that user even if the user is in a Do not disturb state, and the user will still receive calls from these people.
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 unless Privacy mode is enabled. In Privacy mode, presence isn't visible to people outside the organization.
- 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 integration (includes out of office and other calendar information) 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.
Admin settings in Teams compared to Microsoft Outlook
Teams presence in Outlook is supported on the Outlook 2013 desktop app and later for contacts in the same organization.
If the upgrade mode policy of the user account is set to TeamsOnly, Outlook talks to Teams to get presence. If the user account isn't set to TeamsOnly, then Outlook talks to Skype for Business.
Coexistence with Skype for Business
See Coexistence with Skype for Business for details on how Teams presence functions when your organization also uses Skype for Business.