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.

  • ThePowerOfGeek
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    164 months ago

    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.

    • @corroded
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      84 months ago

      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.

      • @gdog05
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        214 months ago

        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.

        • @corroded
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          124 months ago

          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.

        • @[email protected]
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          64 months ago

          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.

          • HobbitFoot
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            84 months ago

            I’m not putting any work stuff on by home computer. I’m not giving work admin rights to that.

        • @candybrie
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          24 months ago

          Do VPNs make that feature kind of pointless? We can’t access most things from home without going through a VPN. Every where I’ve worked (and gone to school) was like that.

        • @[email protected]
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          4 months ago

          It should be noted that work location is a self report tool designed to make collaboration easier so colleagues can know where you are and potentially align their work from home schedules with yours.

          It isn’t a spy tool that tracks where you are. It’s basically just an optional tag that you can add to your calendar if you want.

          We use a slack app for the same purpose, and it works great.

          • @gdog05
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            04 months ago

            It’s not just a self reporting feature it seems. Our IT accidentally turned it on (as I understand) for a day by adding building info to one of the supervisors account. It then showed if you were in the same location (building) than your supervisor.

              • @gdog05
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                14 months ago

                I do not know if the setting is an Entra setting, I don’t have access. I’m just friendly with IT. This is what I believe they were talking about given their description. But not tracking, no. It’s basically a here/not here situation. You’re either tethered to local networking or not.

      • @Brkdncr
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        44 months ago

        At a lower level your IT dept logs the IP address you’re accessing m365 resources from.

        • @[email protected]
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          44 months ago

          Yes the security logs absolutely log that, but I haven’t heard of HR forcing IT to actually use those logs for discovering where people work.

          We don’t give a shit and have better things to do.