It important to manage your time and workspace whether you are working on-site or remotely. Chat apps make communication very quick and easy. However, if not managed properly, the constant interruptions and distractions can reduce productivity, concentration, and work-life balance.
Below we have provided a brief look at how to manage your presence and availability through Status and Availability states in Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Hangouts.
By managing these states, you can control when and how you receive notifications from your coworkers, provide yourself with some dedicated concentration time, and ensure you have uninterrupted downtime.
To balance notifications and limit distractions, below are details on how Availability and Status work within the chat client you are using.
Slack has two Availability states. Set yourself to
To provide more information to other people about your status, you can use Statuses. You can set a time limit for how long these are displayed. If the default text doesn’t work for you, you can enter custom values. Slack has five default Statuses:
For more information regarding availability and statuses
https://slack.com/help/articles/201864558-Set-your-Slack-status-and-availability
For more information regarding synching your calendar to Slack
https://slack.com/slack-tips/sync-your-slack-status-with-your-calendar
Teams has six user-configured and 13 app-configured Presence states. The table below describes these states (from User presence in Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Docs)
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 the app during these periods of time, a dual presence might be shown, such as "Out of office, available". |
|
Busy |
Busy |
In a call |
|
In a meeting |
|
On 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. |
For more information see the following articles
Chat has three Availability states. Set yourself to
In order to provide other people with information about your status, you manually enter text into the Status field in the Google Chat settings. If your calendar is set to Out of Office, other people will see this information.
For information on how to set your status in Google Chat and Gmail
Change your availability status and mute notifications in Google Chat - Computer - Google Chat Help