Microsoft Teams - Change your status in Teams

This tutorial shows how to change your status in teams including to Do Not Disturb, which prevents all notifications and calls from ringing. This is a manual setting that you will need to revert when ready for notifications and calls again. Visit the CU Boulder YouTube channel to watch a video tutorial of this process.

Looking to change your notification settings? Use OIT's Microsoft Teams - Change Notifications tutorial.

Please note: This tutorial uses screenshots from the Teams desktop app, but the process is the same in browser, and similar in the mobile app.

Layout:
one column
two columns

Step

Click your profile picture in the top right hand corner of your teams client. 

Step

Click on your current status to open the Status dropdown menu. Your options include: 

  • Available shows when you’re active in Teams and don’t have anything in your calendar (e.g. no meetings scheduled). Teams will automatically set your status from Available to Away when you lock your computer or when it enters idle or sleep mode. On mobile, this will happen when the Teams app is in the background.
  • Busy is when you want to focus on something, and you do want notifications to pop up. If you’re in a meeting or call, Teams will automatically change your status to In a meeting or In a call (Busy) when not set to Do not disturb.
  • Do not disturb is when you want to focus or present your screen and don’t want notifications to pop up.
  • Be right back is when you want to say you’re temporarily away. It’s never set automatically.
  • Appear away is when you need to work without responding right away.
  • Appear offline is when you want to indicate that you're not signed in to Teams, so will not be responding until you're back online. You'll still receive notifications if anyone messages you.

You can also click Set status message to write a message to appear along with your status.

Step

Type in your message that you would like to show in your status. You can also check Show when people message me for those using chat to contact you. 

Step

Selecting a status such as Do not disturb will not turn off automatically, unless you set a duration. 

Step

Click duration, and select when you'd like Teams to reset your status back to available. 

Step

Your status is now set to do not disturb and will show a red dot with a line signifying this, as well as a Do not disturb banner. Click Change Settings in the Do not disturb banner to check your privacy settings. 

Step

If needed, change privacy settings on this page. If there are users or contacts who you would like to always receive notifications for, click Manage priority access. 

Step

Use the search bar to find contacts to add to your priority access list. Current members of your priority access list will show up beneath the search bar. Click the X next to a contact to remove from your list.