Microsoft Teams did it again: there has been a update to status messages. Now you can do the following
- atmention one or more people in your status message to let people know who to contact in your absence
- set a custom date for how long your status is active
This allows others to see that you are away when they tag you in channel or private messages and they can also see who they should contact in your absence.
Let’s start with finding how you can set your status messages. Click on your image on top-right corner to open the menu and hit on “Set status message”.

You can atmention people normally.

Or you can even atmention multiple persons.

It is good to remember to check the box on “Show when people message me”. I wonder why this is not on by default. Perhaps we just need more mousexercises.

After that, set the lifespan of your status message:

If you choose custom you can set it to any date you like to.

And you are done. You can edit and delete the status using the original menu.

And you are seeing the status on top of the screen as well – there is also a direct link to make a status change.

How other users see it?
When a person is tagged to your status message, they get a private message about it:

The status message is displayed to other users when
- they atmention you in channel discussions
- send you a private message
- view your contact card
Channel conversation notification:

Private message notification:

However if you use @mention and sending message using search/command are the notification is not displayed

However, any place where you open the contact card you can see the message. This works also when you are setting up a meeting.


Any ideas how to set this with Powershell? I’ve been unable to find a way to do it but was able to do it with Lync (which is now way back in the day!)
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I don’t this it is possible yet to do in any other way but via UI. Writing and reading the status + status text would indeed open a lots of great scenarios for integration.
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What if I want to leave a clickable link in the status. Example: check out this page:http….
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Unfortunately that is not possible – at least currently. I don’t know if it is in the roadmap either.
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Thank you very much for this article.
Regarding visibility when others “atmention you in channel discussions”: Just to verify, this means that your status is not permanently visible in channels you’re a member of, but only appears for an individual while they are composing a message that at-mentions you, correct? (I hope so.)
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That is correct. 🙂
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Thank you for confirming! It’s been surprisingly difficult to confirm that detail, so I appreciate it.
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Unfortunately, it does not work for me in a described way.
My status message is always shown in a channel, where I’m a member, or in a group chat, even if I’m not mentioned in a typed message. What can be done in this case?
Was the behavior of this function changed?
Or it may be regulated by corporate policies somehow?
Thanks.
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I just tested it briefly: Status message is shown in a channel or group what if you have checked on “Show when people message me”. If it is not set the message is not displayed. Message was displayed to me only when atmentioning or using chat.
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Can we read status message using graph api?
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No you can not – but you can now retrieve a Out of Office message. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/api/presence-get?view=graph-rest-beta&tabs=http
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