How reliable is Teams for tracking work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Apparently if someone’s Teams indicates they haven’t been seen in 20 hours it does in fact mean they haven’t touched Teams in 20 hours.

Not according to several posts above yours.

Well, I asked our IT and they confirmed it. I suspect Teams works the same at other orgs.

[Anonymous]

Their teams could have been accidentally set to away. So even if they are working it shows as away, happened to me!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Their teams could have been accidentally set to away. So even if they are working it shows as away, happened to me!!

IT guy said the moment you open Teams, it resets the tracker that says “hasn’t been seen in X hours.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really question the value of people that sit around and monitor how much people are online. I know every organization has someone that's monitoring how often people are on teams or how often the login in/badge in.

I think that is a waste of time.

If the person is a high performer and a valued member of the team, this would not be an issue.

I assume OP is asking because there are multiple red flags.

[Anonymous]

I hate the green yellow red nature of Teams. Just no.

[Anonymous]

My colleague sent me a calendar invite that says she's out of office because I'm covering for her. But teams is reading that and showing that I'm out of office, which I'm not (and I'm actively using teams). It's not reliable.

[Anonymous]

Plenty of people in my office appear offline even though I'm talking to them at that moment. Not a reliable indicator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate the green yellow red nature of Teams. Just no.

I'm at a high performing place and no one would ever accuse me of not working. I really like the green/yellow/red Teams. I accept at least 10 cold calls a day dealing with random legal issues. I tell everyone that if my light is green, feel free to call. If it's yellow they should assume I'm in a meeting/working on a document/in the bathroom/eating.

Cold calls are annoying (random sidequests!) but it keeps my employees and colleagues on task. They can get a quick answer and keep moving. It's definitely increased productivity in my office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really question the value of people that sit around and monitor how much people are online. I know every organization has someone that's monitoring how often people are on teams or how often the login in/badge in.

I think that is a waste of time.

If the person is a high performer and a valued member of the team, this would not be an issue.

I assume OP is asking because there are multiple red flags.

Agreed. But it's hard for managers to get enough ammo to have IT pull records. That early stage of documenting is hard. And when you confront someone for not completing tasks on time, there's always some sob story about how hard it was and it took them forever. Nope! IT says you were on news websites for 7 hours a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If someone’s Teams shows them as yellow and says they haven’t been seen in 20 hours, then is it safe to assume they haven’t been online/haven’t logged in/used their work laptop?

A thumbs up response to an email can be sent from a phone, and the concern is that someone who hasn’t been sufficiently responsive/productive is offline, simply tracking email and Teams by phone, and the yellow Teams status coupled with the “hasn’t been seen in 20 hours” seems to confirm suspicions, right?

DO NOT BASE your assumptions on Teams statuses. I work from 7 am to almost 6 pm daily.. my job in general is very demanding. Just the other day a colleague reached out to me and said they haven't seen me online in days. To me, I appeared green on Teams and to others I appeared offline. I rebooted my laptop, reauthenticated, but my status continues to show up as offline. I have been offline in Teams for over 20 days apparently. But in reality I am VERY MUCH ONLINE almost 11 hours per day working my ass off.

[Anonymous]

I’m often on my computer and working but will appear yellow if I’m not actively in Teams. Perhaps it’s because I have two monitors and I’m not working in the one with Teams on it. And like some else said, I sometimes set it as yellow or offline to avoid interruptions. But if someone is both unresponsive and repeatedly appearing away for long stretches of time, they probably are away.

[Anonymous]

My Teams turns yellow every time I have a meeting on my calendar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My colleague sent me a calendar invite that says she's out of office because I'm covering for her. But teams is reading that and showing that I'm out of office, which I'm not (and I'm actively using teams). It's not reliable.

Your colleague needs to learn how to send out of office calendar invites that don't make other people appear OOO/purple. (Pet peeve of mine.)