Sneaking in a work from home day could soon be a bit trickier thanks to a new update coming to Microsoft Outlook.
The email provider is rolling out a new feature that will allow users to spot which of their co-workers or colleagues is currently in the office, and therefore possibly free for a quick meeting or able to reply to a message.
The update will use the Work Hours and Location information stored within Outlook to offer up this information, meaning there may be some awkward conversations if your colleagues believe you to be in the office.
In its entry in the Microsoft 365 roadmap, the company notes that the feature will be “always on”, meaning there may be no getting around what it represents as your office presence.
Boy I hate MS, and I hate Outlook, and MS Teams, and offices, and companies, and work…
Yet, I’m failing to understand what I’m supposed to be angry about here, can someone help?
From what I understand, you set the work hours and people will know if you’re working or not based on that…? It doesn’t sound too controversial to me.
Do people stay home without telling anyone and they wont be able to do that anymore? Or what?
I don’t get the problem. Isn’t this the entire point of registering your work location in outlook? Why would you add it and be surprised if others can see it?
Wouldn’t your coworkers already know you’re working from home by, you know not seeing you at the office?
When I worked in an office, most of my team was in other offices across the world. But we had to be in the office for that TEAM BUILDING
Yes, pleb, build that team 🤡
“Sent from my yacht”
If your company is nationwide and has offices all over the country and you work on a distributed team where some people are on the west coast, some are central, and some are on the east coast. In this such event, none of your teammates will physically be able to tell if you are in the office. That’s what this feature is for.
So we can all continue to work from home, from a prescribed office of our employers choosing.
Ahhh the gigantic benefit of seeing a cubicle in the background of your zoom. Thanks Microsoft
We’re concerned that your home doesn’t look soul crushing enough. Please upgrade your home office by installing fluorescent tube lights and covering your walls with rough faded blue grey cloth, or we’ll need you to come into the office.
What? How would this change anything in that scenario? You’re still doing a video call if you want to talk to them.
Welcome to the nonsense that is corporations.
My “office” is a network of interconnected multi-story buildings. It’s actually really convenient for me to know if I need to go meet someone in person or just use video.
Sometimes we have a room booked ahead of time and I learn they are wfh when I get to the empty room.
That’s just poor common courtesy by your coworker. If you have a physical room booked and they are WFH they need to tell you so you don’t waste your time. You shouldn’t be relying on teams status
OTOH, you should hold calls and meetings in specific rooms - even if the other party is WFH, not in the open space, so…
Yeah, that’s what the meeting invite RSVP is for.
Sounds like all the meetings should just be done by video and nothing would be lost.
I don’t pretend I am in the office when I am not. I don’t even bother with hiding yellow. I am avaliable during business ours to get things done.
If there is nothing to get done. I am shoot shit with coworkers in the office or doing laundry at home. If you need me, ping me and I will magically appear to take care your needs.
Nice system, barely needs any management but they keep trying to “contribute” 🤡
Your M365 admin can already tell by your IP address. Just like they know when you’re looking at porn when your IP randomly hops states for a little while.
Who be looking at porn on the work PC lol. For me I have to give a ’ reason’ to disconnect form the work VPN. I do do anything on work PC besides work tbh
Yeah, never use a work device for anything you’re not actually getting paid to do. To do otherwise is just stupid. Save non-work stuff for your own devices.
I use my personal computer as a work PC. But I run a VM for the work stuff. It’s great.
You don’t have to make things complicated here. If you want to tell people that you use Linux, just say that.
Interesting. Teams has been doing this for a few years now, so I assume it’s the same functionality just transferred over to Outlook (which has been going through a massive overhaul recently). For anyone in an MS-based company with Teams being actively used, this is not a new thing.
How does Teams give away your location? I’ve used it extensively, but I’ve never seen someone’s location unless the enter it manually.
It can be turned on by the IT dept in a large office. It has a different icon for in office network connection vs not. Not every IT dept uses it. Some treat other employees like adults, for instance.
And this is why I haven’t installed Teams on my personal computer. If it was less invasive, I would, but it’s just potential bossware masquerading as “productivity tools.”
That shit stays on my work computer, and I just VPN into it.
I’m not putting any work stuff on by home computer. I’m not giving work admin rights to that.
Having my status turn yellow when I so much as look away from my screen is bad enough. I really hope this “feature” stays off.
At a lower level your IT dept logs the IP address you’re accessing m365 resources from.
