Introduction

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.

• Statuses provide information to others about what you are currently doing
• Availability controls how you receive notifications

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.

Contents

• Slack
• Microsoft Teams
• Google Hangouts

Instructions

To balance notifications and limit distractions, below are details on how Availability and Status work within the chat client you are using. 

Slack

Slack has two Availability states. Set yourself to

• Active to let users know you are available for instant communication and to receive all notifications according to your current settings.
• Away to let users know that you are not available for instant communication, but all notifications will occur according to your current settings.

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:

• In a Meeting
• Commuting
• Out Sick
• Working Remotely
• Vacationing (sets your Availability to Do Not Disturb)

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

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Microsoft Teams

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

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/change-your-status-in-teams-ce36ed14-6bc9-4775-a33e-6629ba4ff78e#ID0EAABAAA=Desktop

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Google Chat

Chat has three Availability states. Set yourself to

• Automatic - Automatically lets users know you are available and receiving all notifications based on calendar availability
• Do Not Disturb - to disable notifications, but doesn’t provide any additional information to other people
• Set as Away - to disable notification

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

 

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