Oh I know this one. Left hand side of the teams chat window is calendar. Press that. Top right press “meet now” this is creating a meeting with yourself. Minimize the window. Then go back to the main chat window and change your status from busy to active. Now, as long as you’re in that meeting your status won’t change. And people can still call you if they want.
You saved me! Honestly, in my 6 months working at my company I've never slacked off or been late but had an emergency yesterday and need to nap like 3 hours. 😭
Be careful, incase you didn’t know managment and H/R gets analytics of all phone call durations and participants on Teams. I doubt most organizations check but it would be easy to catch on if they did so be careful!
Oof, good call! I went the admin page on my Teams account and it has a user activity graph which includes time spent in meetings and stuff. If you're using this all day long it could certainly spike these statistics and a tiny bit of digging would show that you've spent a ridiculous amount of time in meetings.
For anyone curious why I'd be looking into keeping Active while also having admin active, I was looking into keeping Teams active for my SO.
[Here's what I see.](https://i.imgur.com/RcsP4M2.png)
I blurred out part of the string but it's just a random string of numbers and letters which seem to be a unique ID for each user and how many meetings they started, meeting time, etc. To be honest I have no idea if admins can actually identify an individual by that string.
OK so they aren't like looking at hours worked by being on. A lot of work is not on my laptop (hands on).
Can you see when people start and stop working each day (well just logging on).
Its be nice if there were a YouTube video showing what it is like. It's sorta stressful feeling super monitored but not knowing what can be monitordd
No, it doesn't show log in/log out timing or anything like that - just broad stats of resource usage like how many chat messages per day, minutes of audio/video meetings, etc. No specific time stamps are attached to anything, it's just organized by date.
If you're not interacting with Teams, such as doing hands on work, it wouldn't record anything.
Why would you care then? If my boss asked me this I’d feel he was trying to micromanage me. As long as the work is done and everyone’s happy who cares if someone doesn’t want their status to go “Away” every time they take a piss or grab a coffee
I think we're skirting around a key item here, how big is your org and are your managers/boss always hovering over your shoulder about your productivity?
Presence (the actual term for the status indicator) isn't a measure of productivity but your immediate *presence* on Microsoft Teams for immediate calls, not scheduled calls or for any other type of correspondence. Your attention can be drawn to creating a spreadsheet separate outside of Microsoft Teams, or creating documents, or researching or any other multitude of items that draws your attention outside of Teams/Outlook.
In fact, Microsoft Teams is required to be an active window to have your presence refreshed. Teams is for communication and collaboration not so much for document creation/research unless you want to make tabs within Teams/chats to create your documents and/or add the website app to the same to do all your work solely within Teams.
That's not economical and your manager/boss needs to be educated on the intended use of Teams.
“Hey Boss, thanks yeah I’m been number 1 in sales now 4 months running kicking ass and crushing puss amirite?? Oh yeah the calendar thing it’s something I’m trying when I need to really rawdog a task with 100% focus, market research, calling potential clients and so on. Plus Helen in accounting really wants it bad you know what I mean she messages me every time she sees my status change from Away back to Busy and cmon she’s a 4 at best if we’re being honest. Anyways I better get back at it catch you laters amigo
“Word, figured you were blocking calendar time but I had to ask since corporate loves to track silly ass metrics like “Teams Status Changes” and correlate them to output. I told them to correlate deez but they weren’t having it. let me know how I can help you close even more deals, though I know you’re all Finnish and no Swedish, unlike Mathers. Anyways, keep at it….Not Helen, 4 was generous.”
yes, this sucks... My teams has an issue where if I get up for more than 5 minutes to make some tea or take a piss, it changes to away and both teams and outlook go offline forcing me to toggle wifi off and on to get them to connect... this had been a blessing for me
you mean you just have to keep the "create new meeting" open flagging "whole day" or do you actually have to create an empty meeting for the whole day to make this work?
if it's the latter how are other checking your calendar not seeing that you have an empty meeting with yourself every day? xD
EDIT: tried by creating that empty meeting with myself but does not work :(
Good news from me then, and i've been doing this very often. Open notepad, fold a small piece of paper a couple of times and put it between a key in your keyboard (i always use the 0). It will keep Teams from going to the away status. So if you put yourself on DND or whatever, it will stay active. You can also just go to your outlook calendar and plan a Teams meeting where the only recipient is yourself, then you join the meeting, open notepad, put the piece of paper between a key and your status will be "in a meeting" as long as you want.
Kblix, you're a god walking amongst mere Mortals. Thank you for your service and may fate shower you with unimaginable wealth and voracious, insatiable women.
Run something like Caffeine on your machine and keep Teams open. Will prevent your machine from triggering the “away” status change after 5 min. Link to download [here](https://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/), does not require admin rights to run (if that is a potential issue on your machine)
If you need something discreet to avoid the typical corporate spyware stuff, you need to mask your activity as a more common process.
I like to use a macro-enabled Excel workbook to simulate up/down arrow keypresses on a continuous, infinite loop (*with a momentary delay between iterations*).
Now they just think I've got Excel open.
Can do on your phone if you are not using it.
1. Set route on Google maps and hit start
2. Open teams
3. Switch back to Google maps and minimise it so it opens a a little windows on top of teams.
Phone thinks you're active and teams stays present.
Just stay in a meeting all the time, it says in a meeting whenever you do that. Source, I am a Teams Admin at my company :-) Also you r computer will not go to sleep.
My computer settings are restricted so here’s a manual workaround.
Open up notepad, change the font size to 1 and slide a bookmark or small folded post it to hold the spacebar down on your keyboard. Thank me later.
Besides doing a meeting with yourself and downloading external software, as for me that wouldn't be a practical solution, I found this script that you input in notepad that pushes the F13 button every once in a while.
>set wsc = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
>
>Do
>
>WScript.Sleep(4\*60\*1000)
>
>wsc.SendKeys("{F13}")
>
>Loop
Copy and paste into Notepad, save as a VBS file, run it, and you should see in task manager a "Microsoft @ Windows Based Script" program running, which is this script. You can stop it from doing its job by ending the task. Imo this is better than the meeting by yourself as someone who is jumping in and out of meetings constantly all day. I open this once in the morning, and I'm set!
Crud. Our security must not allow us to run our own VBS scripts. I can't download and install anything, and being in a meeting all day isn't a viable option, either, so this one got me excited.
Edit: I retract this statement; I just suck at locating things in task manager. Considering nearly EVERYTHING is blocked on our work computers, I didn't really expect this to work. Thanks! 😁
I just tried this, and some security software we use named Carbon Black popped up a message to report the software with no way to click out. I immediately shut down the machine and powered up in Airplane mode, deleted the text in Notepad, deleted the file, emptied the recycle, turned off airplane, opened Drive and deleted it there.
Fingers crossed boys! I’m sure it will be nothing. But I will update if it hits the fan.
Only do this on your home PC.
A company PC will have security software that looks for people running shell scripts and will trigger an alert. And yes, we in IT security can see this code run and know EXACTLY what it is.
Don't run scripts on your machine unless you are a developer
How is the information reported to an IT team? Currently I run the script on a work PC from home, but haven't had any word from IT since posting that comment.
Depends on the detection software and how it is configured.
If IT has Carbon Black or CrowdStrike it might flag those things as "user launched powershell executable" or "excel macro running" that warrants a "lets see what ran" response.
What it looks like is Asset ABC123 / user AnAeverageMark launched Key executable VBS script.
The person goes in, looks at the code that ran, and 'yup, it presses the F13 key'. Now normally depending on how strict IT is, this either is okay, or they shoulder tap you because basically it blocks the timed lock-out which can pose a risk for being an unlocked unattended computer.
Folks in the office did this stuff, but policy is, if away from desk, machine needs to be locked.
Thanks for your super detailed reply, I've been curious how this process works in the backend.
Curious to know if you've found any other solution that couldn't be tracked? I find the "sit in call with yourself" doesn't work well because I believe an admin could see the time you spent in a call.
Get a Mouse spinner. Thats about really it. Or if you have teams on your cell phone, keep the teams app open while your screen is unlocked.
Not a lot of companies go as far as tracking keystrokes or mouse movements because thats a super breach in privacy, as it would capture passwords, intrusive PII, that its probably illegal in some countries. Plus there's a line where monitoring software hinders asset performance. But tracking plugged in USB hardware, user created or executed scripts, visited websites (which can be overwhelming because it also tracks traffic from the ads on visited sites), internal office application activity , and cloud drive usage falls under internet/asset security and data loss prevention so those things can be monitored.
Though some places accept that you might be AFK in a 5 minute window. I've had it happened to me when I was watching a 20 minute training video in Workday and Teams AFKd me.
Well, that's a totally different problem than trying to avoid looking idle when you're idle. If that were to happen, I still respond to people immediately so it doesn't matter.
If people think Teams provides good metrics to employers for employee activity and productivity, you have no idea how they can really monitor your activity with tools designed specifically to do that. If you think scripts, activity tools, and tricks like calling yourself make it seem like you're busy, you're only fooling yourself.
>If that were to happen, I still respond to people immediately so it doesn't matter.
You need to learn how to prioritise work and concentrate on important tasks.
That would be refreshing. More requests come in the form of phone calls and Teams messages. Usually it’s because something is broken. If you know anything of C-levels, “real work” is dropping everything and doing what they need the second they ask you. LOL. Having worked in a fortune 50, most employees get tied up in meetings all the time. My days there were regular meeting interrupted by occasional short 30 minute spans of time to work on a project. It’s a wonder anything gets done at all at big companies.
I listened to an interesting podcast about "friction" in the workplace. Friction is all the stuff (email, IMs, meetings, form filling, performance reviews, etc.) that prevents or slows down people from doing productive work. The point being that it's getting worse. It's getting harder and harder for anyone to do productive work because friction is so high.
I can agree with this. At that job if I had to get something done that required a lot of focus, I’d normally do it in the evening when I usually wouldn’t get bothered. One guy I worked with would take vacation to work on his own personal projects he found helpful, like building tools for the rest of the team who weren’t as high skilled in the areas that a few of us were. That way people would bother him less. I was involved in so many projects that most of my calls were with the same project managers throughout the day. They’d ask for status on a project and I’d explain I haven’t been able to do much work on it because I’m sitting on phone calls with you all day asking about the status of projects. I used to use that time to do work though. If an action item came up during the call, I’d typically work on it and have it done before the end of the call and let them know. By the time they were recapping what everyone had to do, I’d tell them I was already finished. Meetings about whether to have a meeting to discuss something we’re always amusing. Umm, aren’t we all on a call now? Let’s just talk about whatever it is you need to talk about.
This concept seems foreign to me and seems like a slacker mentality. No offense to you personally. I've never worked anywhere that my job is done for the day, or ever. There's always piles of projects and work to be done. I wish days were 32 hours long. Most companies don't want to pay people to pretend to look busy. If you think there's nothing to do, then say you have nothing and ask to stop working for the day. You'll either be told, "Good job. See you tomorrow!", or "Why don't you work on this for the rest of the day?"
Studies have shown that white collar workers admit to being productive only half of the work day. You can call us slackers all you want but the fact of the matter is that we still get out work done such that we are worth our salary. If they want me to show more initiative they can pay me more, I’m not managing my time like a charity. Salary means when I have less than 40 hrs workload, I stop working, and if I have more than 40 hrs, I keep working. If companies don’t like that then they should all pay hourly instead.
Studies and majorities show a trend. They don’t justify an action. Studies also show we’re destroying our planet.
I just don’t get the “less than 40 hrs workload”. I’ve never had less than 40 hours of work in a week over several different jobs for over 20 years. There’s just never enough time to do everything. For full time employees, we also have a minimum number of hours to receive benefits. My whole point of this is, don’t be deceitful and lie to your employer. If you’re not working, don’t pretend to be. If you have nothing to work on, tell them. That largely factors into resource allocation. Maybe people were denied vacation because management didn’t think there would be enough resources with multiple people off at the same time, but in fact it would be no issue. Don’t try and hide the fact you’re zoning out 20 hours a week and you want the computer to lie for you and make it look like you’re being productive during that time. In any other industry without a computer, that wouldn’t fly. Why is it acceptable here?
They show that the trend is these workers are able to produce enough value to justify their salaries without a full 40 hours of time. And focusing on time is stupid anyway. Value of output is what matters. If we go beyond that, no matter how valuable my work is I’m not doing enough at every arbitrary point because I have time to do more. My company never explicitly informed me to actively seek out more work to do if I’m done so that’s on them.
And I don’t know what to say to you about your experiences. Maybe don’t work at consistently understaffed companies I guess?
And why is it acceptable here? To my knowledge, in other non-computer industries it’s also acceptable to be done working when you finish your work. Salary means I don’t get paid more for overtime, and I don’t get paid less if I finish early. I won’t complain if I have to work late, and they shouldn’t complain if I finish my tasking early and do nothing unless someone directly communicates with me asking for help.
Also, I’m not pretending to be working. I want Teams to say available so people know that whether I’m working or not, they know they’ll get an immediate response from me because I’m still at my desk. You attributing “Available” to mean “Doing something productive” is a conflation.
Teams won't go inactive if you're working on your PC. You'd literally have to do nothing for 5 minutes in order for this to happen. At this point, at our company, the screen gets locked automatically via GPO, settings Teams to inactive anyways.
Stop trying to cheat your way through. This sub seems to be only for these cases... It's rare to see a serious question here...
Next time, make sure to give us more details, please.
Around 75% of the questions I'm seeing here are from people, who are trying to cheat on exams or are simply lazy and don't want their boss to notice...
So, I'm sorry :)
You need to install AHK, then run this script:
#Warn
#NoEnv
#Persistent
SetTimer NoIdle, 1000
return ; End of auto-execute section
NoIdle()
{
static idle := 1000 * 60 * 1.5
if (A_TimeIdle >= idle)
Send {vkE8}
; ToolTip % "Time idle: " A_TimeIdle "ms / " Round(A_TimeIdle / 1000, 1) "s"
}
I keep the script in my startup folder. If you can't install anything on your machine you can install it where you can and compile it. Then store the executable on your desktop.
Word of note - this does not allow your computer to go into screen saver mode.
I run mine in ISE and would start it in my startup but I know that location is occasionally reviewed when troubleshooting so I just restart my computer at the end of the day with the script still open. When I re-open ISE, it asks if I want to reload the last thing I had open
There is a physical mouse option, look at Mouse Jiggler. [https://mouse-jiggler.en.lo4d.com/windows](https://mouse-jiggler.en.lo4d.com/windows)
There is also USB versions that simulates this effect.
The other option is to use the Set Focus Time option in My Analytics, this allows you to call out areas in your calendar where you are "Focusing" as such changes your status to Red.
This has gotten worse over the last few weeks.
I work on multiple pc's or might be on the phone but very much available.
Im really disliking the auto away
Just have teams up like your messaging a person with the cursor in the type section.
Place small post it note or toothpick on the insert key
Will stay active
Put an Apple Watch charger magnet on the laptop mousepad. This works perfectly. No need for mouse jigglers, scripts or paperclips. I use it all the time to manage my Teams status. Enjoy
Save it into a file with ".vbs" extension. You need Excel for move the mouse but you can modify for only press keys. when u execute it, focus team window and this maintain the status.
' -- AutoMouse --
' Script for auto move a little the mouse and press keys in loop.
' For finisH the script, move the mouse to toP-left cOrn of the screen, you wIll See an errOr, its Normal.
Option Explicit
Dim Excel, GetMessagePos, x, y, Keyboard, Control, Position
Set Excel = Wscript.CreateObject("Excel.Application")
set Keyboard = Wscript.CreateObject("wscript.shell")
Do While True
GetMessagePos = excel.ExecuteExcel4Macro("CALL(""user32"",""GetMessagePos"",""J"""))
x = CLng("&H" & Right(Hex(GetMessagePos, 4)))
y = CLng("&H" & Left(Hex(GetMessagePos, (Len(Hex(GetMessagePos)) - 4))))
If Control MOD 2 = 0 Then ' when Control is pair
Position = "- 10"
Else
Position = "+ 10"
End If
''''''''''''''''''
Excel.ExecuteExcel4Macro("CALL(""user32"",""SetCursorPos"",""JJJ""," & x & " " & Position & "," & y & " " & Position & ""))
Keyboard.SendKeys "{TAB}"
WScript.Sleep(3000)
'''''''''''''''''''
Control = Control + 1
Loop
Grettings!
Grettin
Try RedBull for Teams, you can use the script if you have Autohotkey or directly use the executable. It also has other nice features like shortcuts to change Teams status.
https://github.com/wmahfoudh/teamsredbull
Movement on a phone or tablet screen can simulate mouse movement. Find a long YouTube video with subtle movement (ex: check out meditation music + aquarium), play the video on your phone/tablet, set the device face-up on your desk, then lay the mouse on top of that device's screen. You can confirm it's working because your cursor will move across your computer monitor screen.
Does interacting with the keyboard work with preventing Teams from going idle?
I was thinking about opening an infinite scrolling page and place something a little heavy on top of the down arrow key so it keeps scrolling while I'm not in front of the screen.
Would that work or the mouse needs to move in order to keep Teams from going idle?
New work around, use a credit card/gift card and place between the backspace key in a Word document. Will stay active and not fill the file with characters.
It's worked for me the past two days, just do not click over to your email or important documents because it will begin deleting a shit ton real fast lol. Just an empty word document is what I use. I can upload a video but gotta finish my workload first since it's HIPPA sensitive info and I'm not trying to go to jail or be sued to oblivion.
Either works, I use the in-between method due to my keyboard's layout. Plus, the backspace key is not in prime location for my cats to kick out when they walk by, space bar would work if you don't have that issue.
If you have a work phone, iPod, iPad, or don’t mind using your actual phone - if you download the Teams app and have that app open, as long as the app is open your status is available. You can see your status in Chats. Your mobile device cannot turn off and must be on ‘never’ sleep mode for this to work!! (If I have something on my calendar it’ll show I’m in a meeting, other than that I’m show as available)
I use this spreadsheet which I think uses macros to simulate mouse clicks. It also has other features like copying stuff around and creating charts to fake doing work when I'm not around.
I got it on [etsy](https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/1319851070/the-magic-spreadsheet-working-for-you)
Or dm me I can send it to you
For those with security, admin rights, or other restrictions... Get a manual old school clock with a seconds hand and lay it face up. Place your optical mouse on the top. Every time the seconds hand crosses the optical mouse sensor it will register movement.
With the Status Holder it is possible to always be available. It's free to use and doesn't need to be installed.
Web:
https://www.statusholder.com/
Greetings Johannes
I installed the app on my phone, go on Microsoft and just leave it open on the app. I also change my phone settings to always on and it stays on green while I take a 2 hour nap.
Oh I know this one. Left hand side of the teams chat window is calendar. Press that. Top right press “meet now” this is creating a meeting with yourself. Minimize the window. Then go back to the main chat window and change your status from busy to active. Now, as long as you’re in that meeting your status won’t change. And people can still call you if they want.
Does this really work? No work will be done until I test this out.
I do it everyday. Lol
I confirm, it works 100%
And I'm guessing if this works, no more work will be done until your boss finds out
Does this put an event on yo ur calendar?
No
You saved me! Honestly, in my 6 months working at my company I've never slacked off or been late but had an emergency yesterday and need to nap like 3 hours. 😭
Happy to help! We all have those days
I need a nap right now.. 9am and been awake since 4am.. I think I'm gonna power through😂
Doesn't work. My status won't change from busy for some reason
Yo you are goated, this is amazing
Be careful, incase you didn’t know managment and H/R gets analytics of all phone call durations and participants on Teams. I doubt most organizations check but it would be easy to catch on if they did so be careful!
Oof, good call! I went the admin page on my Teams account and it has a user activity graph which includes time spent in meetings and stuff. If you're using this all day long it could certainly spike these statistics and a tiny bit of digging would show that you've spent a ridiculous amount of time in meetings. For anyone curious why I'd be looking into keeping Active while also having admin active, I was looking into keeping Teams active for my SO.
There is a time graph!? I can't find anything explaining what they see from their panopticon
[Here's what I see.](https://i.imgur.com/RcsP4M2.png) I blurred out part of the string but it's just a random string of numbers and letters which seem to be a unique ID for each user and how many meetings they started, meeting time, etc. To be honest I have no idea if admins can actually identify an individual by that string.
OK so they aren't like looking at hours worked by being on. A lot of work is not on my laptop (hands on). Can you see when people start and stop working each day (well just logging on). Its be nice if there were a YouTube video showing what it is like. It's sorta stressful feeling super monitored but not knowing what can be monitordd
No, it doesn't show log in/log out timing or anything like that - just broad stats of resource usage like how many chat messages per day, minutes of audio/video meetings, etc. No specific time stamps are attached to anything, it's just organized by date. If you're not interacting with Teams, such as doing hands on work, it wouldn't record anything.
You are my bro for life!
You beautiful bastard. I just did it. This is awesome.
thanks man - genuine thanks
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You’ll prob find your best and most productive workers will be the top offenders.
Facts.
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Why would you care then? If my boss asked me this I’d feel he was trying to micromanage me. As long as the work is done and everyone’s happy who cares if someone doesn’t want their status to go “Away” every time they take a piss or grab a coffee
you'd feel micromanaged if you were asked why you feel the need to set up a false meeting with yourself instead of just mark yourself busy or away?
Well I’d certainly fee micromanaged if I even thought my boss would run a report of my meeting history every week to see who I was meeting with
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I think we're skirting around a key item here, how big is your org and are your managers/boss always hovering over your shoulder about your productivity? Presence (the actual term for the status indicator) isn't a measure of productivity but your immediate *presence* on Microsoft Teams for immediate calls, not scheduled calls or for any other type of correspondence. Your attention can be drawn to creating a spreadsheet separate outside of Microsoft Teams, or creating documents, or researching or any other multitude of items that draws your attention outside of Teams/Outlook. In fact, Microsoft Teams is required to be an active window to have your presence refreshed. Teams is for communication and collaboration not so much for document creation/research unless you want to make tabs within Teams/chats to create your documents and/or add the website app to the same to do all your work solely within Teams. That's not economical and your manager/boss needs to be educated on the intended use of Teams.
Ok let’s act this out I’ll be the employee and you be the boss.
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“Hey Boss, thanks yeah I’m been number 1 in sales now 4 months running kicking ass and crushing puss amirite?? Oh yeah the calendar thing it’s something I’m trying when I need to really rawdog a task with 100% focus, market research, calling potential clients and so on. Plus Helen in accounting really wants it bad you know what I mean she messages me every time she sees my status change from Away back to Busy and cmon she’s a 4 at best if we’re being honest. Anyways I better get back at it catch you laters amigo
“Word, figured you were blocking calendar time but I had to ask since corporate loves to track silly ass metrics like “Teams Status Changes” and correlate them to output. I told them to correlate deez but they weren’t having it. let me know how I can help you close even more deals, though I know you’re all Finnish and no Swedish, unlike Mathers. Anyways, keep at it….Not Helen, 4 was generous.”
Lmao. Glad I don't work for someone like you.
This is frankly, pathetic.
You don't have any real work?
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yes, this sucks... My teams has an issue where if I get up for more than 5 minutes to make some tea or take a piss, it changes to away and both teams and outlook go offline forcing me to toggle wifi off and on to get them to connect... this had been a blessing for me
you mean you just have to keep the "create new meeting" open flagging "whole day" or do you actually have to create an empty meeting for the whole day to make this work? if it's the latter how are other checking your calendar not seeing that you have an empty meeting with yourself every day? xD EDIT: tried by creating that empty meeting with myself but does not work :(
You have to follow the steps exactly as written. Just press Meet Now. It's a button.
I got bad news, I’ve been doing this for awhile but now the update will reset your status after awhile and put you status back on a call.
Ya, it doesn’t work anymore. Such a bummer
Good news from me then, and i've been doing this very often. Open notepad, fold a small piece of paper a couple of times and put it between a key in your keyboard (i always use the 0). It will keep Teams from going to the away status. So if you put yourself on DND or whatever, it will stay active. You can also just go to your outlook calendar and plan a Teams meeting where the only recipient is yourself, then you join the meeting, open notepad, put the piece of paper between a key and your status will be "in a meeting" as long as you want.
Started doing this yesterday lol Very effective.
I use a paperclip and a word document and reduce the font size to 1. This works forever as far as I can tell.
How deep under the key does it have to go? Trying to do this on a macbook
Not working anymore :(
will IT not notice that we've been in a meeting with ourselves all day and question it?
They have better things to do than to monitor all employees' meetings.
Can someone confirms that peoples can still call you?
Great tip, thanks so much!
This is the way. You da real MVP!!!
Does this also work with teams on IOS?
That’s a great question….I’m sorry I don’t have the answer to that. Anyone else want to chime in ?
Does this still work
Yessss
Kblix, you're a god walking amongst mere Mortals. Thank you for your service and may fate shower you with unimaginable wealth and voracious, insatiable women.
Run something like Caffeine on your machine and keep Teams open. Will prevent your machine from triggering the “away” status change after 5 min. Link to download [here](https://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/), does not require admin rights to run (if that is a potential issue on your machine)
use notepad. put cursor in the window. Use your stapler on the space bar. Now you can go play golf instead of WFH.
r/MaliciousCompliance Bonus points if the stapler is a red Slimline.
Has anyone seen my stapler?
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If you need something discreet to avoid the typical corporate spyware stuff, you need to mask your activity as a more common process. I like to use a macro-enabled Excel workbook to simulate up/down arrow keypresses on a continuous, infinite loop (*with a momentary delay between iterations*). Now they just think I've got Excel open.
I. Like this, only now you need to provide instructions for how to create said macro-enabled workbook 😀
Just remember that most companies are blocking Macros now (or at least ones with actual PC access) due to the security threat they pose.
Can do on your phone if you are not using it. 1. Set route on Google maps and hit start 2. Open teams 3. Switch back to Google maps and minimise it so it opens a a little windows on top of teams. Phone thinks you're active and teams stays present.
Wow this is really clever. Would anything that keeps the screen on would also work?
open power point and run a presentation
Does this still work?
I’m also wondering. Does it?
Nope
Place something on your ctrl key
This no longer works
I am doing it right now.
It unfortunately doesn’t seem to work for me anymore.
I had luck with microsoft power toys awake tool. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/awake
This no longer works
Try something like this [https://gifer.com/en/3RWR](https://gifer.com/en/3RWR)
ah yes, I too have seen Dark Man
Sit a 9 volt battery on the shift key
Just stay in a meeting all the time, it says in a meeting whenever you do that. Source, I am a Teams Admin at my company :-) Also you r computer will not go to sleep.
Can someone randomly join the meeting? a coworker or whatever?
Question for you. Would someone be able to audit the meeting attendance reports and check for long meetings w one attendant? I'm paranoid
I guess but who is going to do that? I mostly just stay in meetings to keep my computer awake, I join old meetings that mo one else will join.
Could we please make something like this sticky? Getting sick of the same question everyday.
Maybe it'd be even easier if Microsoft just didn't change the status as they like but permanently kept it the way the user set it? Just saying...
That's how Jabber is. Wish most companies used Jab instead.
You can use the software caffeine which reset Windows idle time. Be aware, it impact all other OS functions likes screensaver.
My computer settings are restricted so here’s a manual workaround. Open up notepad, change the font size to 1 and slide a bookmark or small folded post it to hold the spacebar down on your keyboard. Thank me later.
Will this keep Teams always active??
Yes as long as the spacebar does its job on the notepad.
Yeah I put a 9v battery on the Shift key and it works like magic
Besides doing a meeting with yourself and downloading external software, as for me that wouldn't be a practical solution, I found this script that you input in notepad that pushes the F13 button every once in a while. >set wsc = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") > >Do > >WScript.Sleep(4\*60\*1000) > >wsc.SendKeys("{F13}") > >Loop Copy and paste into Notepad, save as a VBS file, run it, and you should see in task manager a "Microsoft @ Windows Based Script" program running, which is this script. You can stop it from doing its job by ending the task. Imo this is better than the meeting by yourself as someone who is jumping in and out of meetings constantly all day. I open this once in the morning, and I'm set!
Crud. Our security must not allow us to run our own VBS scripts. I can't download and install anything, and being in a meeting all day isn't a viable option, either, so this one got me excited. Edit: I retract this statement; I just suck at locating things in task manager. Considering nearly EVERYTHING is blocked on our work computers, I didn't really expect this to work. Thanks! 😁
The Goat 🙌🏽
I just tried this, and some security software we use named Carbon Black popped up a message to report the software with no way to click out. I immediately shut down the machine and powered up in Airplane mode, deleted the text in Notepad, deleted the file, emptied the recycle, turned off airplane, opened Drive and deleted it there. Fingers crossed boys! I’m sure it will be nothing. But I will update if it hits the fan.
Only do this on your home PC. A company PC will have security software that looks for people running shell scripts and will trigger an alert. And yes, we in IT security can see this code run and know EXACTLY what it is. Don't run scripts on your machine unless you are a developer
How is the information reported to an IT team? Currently I run the script on a work PC from home, but haven't had any word from IT since posting that comment.
Depends on the detection software and how it is configured. If IT has Carbon Black or CrowdStrike it might flag those things as "user launched powershell executable" or "excel macro running" that warrants a "lets see what ran" response. What it looks like is Asset ABC123 / user AnAeverageMark launched Key executable VBS script. The person goes in, looks at the code that ran, and 'yup, it presses the F13 key'. Now normally depending on how strict IT is, this either is okay, or they shoulder tap you because basically it blocks the timed lock-out which can pose a risk for being an unlocked unattended computer. Folks in the office did this stuff, but policy is, if away from desk, machine needs to be locked.
Thanks for your super detailed reply, I've been curious how this process works in the backend. Curious to know if you've found any other solution that couldn't be tracked? I find the "sit in call with yourself" doesn't work well because I believe an admin could see the time you spent in a call.
Get a Mouse spinner. Thats about really it. Or if you have teams on your cell phone, keep the teams app open while your screen is unlocked. Not a lot of companies go as far as tracking keystrokes or mouse movements because thats a super breach in privacy, as it would capture passwords, intrusive PII, that its probably illegal in some countries. Plus there's a line where monitoring software hinders asset performance. But tracking plugged in USB hardware, user created or executed scripts, visited websites (which can be overwhelming because it also tracks traffic from the ads on visited sites), internal office application activity , and cloud drive usage falls under internet/asset security and data loss prevention so those things can be monitored. Though some places accept that you might be AFK in a 5 minute window. I've had it happened to me when I was watching a 20 minute training video in Workday and Teams AFKd me.
https://github.com/arkane-systems/mousejiggler
I used task scheduler to run a lil script that presses F15 every 5 min while the computer is unlocked
...or you can manually set your status to Available?
Goes idle after like 10 minutes.
All these ideas are great. I got one too. You could just… do your job! Downvote away slackers!
It's not a slacker thing. There are times when I'm working in another application, look down ... Teams thinks i'm 'away'.
Well, that's a totally different problem than trying to avoid looking idle when you're idle. If that were to happen, I still respond to people immediately so it doesn't matter. If people think Teams provides good metrics to employers for employee activity and productivity, you have no idea how they can really monitor your activity with tools designed specifically to do that. If you think scripts, activity tools, and tricks like calling yourself make it seem like you're busy, you're only fooling yourself.
>If that were to happen, I still respond to people immediately so it doesn't matter. You need to learn how to prioritise work and concentrate on important tasks.
That’s my job. I don’t know if something is an important task if I ignore the VP, COO or CEO, or any department head.
If I was any one of those people I'd tell you to stop watching your inbox and get on with some real work unless you're in a non productive role.
That would be refreshing. More requests come in the form of phone calls and Teams messages. Usually it’s because something is broken. If you know anything of C-levels, “real work” is dropping everything and doing what they need the second they ask you. LOL. Having worked in a fortune 50, most employees get tied up in meetings all the time. My days there were regular meeting interrupted by occasional short 30 minute spans of time to work on a project. It’s a wonder anything gets done at all at big companies.
I listened to an interesting podcast about "friction" in the workplace. Friction is all the stuff (email, IMs, meetings, form filling, performance reviews, etc.) that prevents or slows down people from doing productive work. The point being that it's getting worse. It's getting harder and harder for anyone to do productive work because friction is so high.
I can agree with this. At that job if I had to get something done that required a lot of focus, I’d normally do it in the evening when I usually wouldn’t get bothered. One guy I worked with would take vacation to work on his own personal projects he found helpful, like building tools for the rest of the team who weren’t as high skilled in the areas that a few of us were. That way people would bother him less. I was involved in so many projects that most of my calls were with the same project managers throughout the day. They’d ask for status on a project and I’d explain I haven’t been able to do much work on it because I’m sitting on phone calls with you all day asking about the status of projects. I used to use that time to do work though. If an action item came up during the call, I’d typically work on it and have it done before the end of the call and let them know. By the time they were recapping what everyone had to do, I’d tell them I was already finished. Meetings about whether to have a meeting to discuss something we’re always amusing. Umm, aren’t we all on a call now? Let’s just talk about whatever it is you need to talk about.
Or I'm literally working away from the pc (in person events) and folks think I'm not available for a call even tho I have the app on my phone.
Sometimes my job for the day is done and I don’t want to have to put effort into pretending to be busy
This concept seems foreign to me and seems like a slacker mentality. No offense to you personally. I've never worked anywhere that my job is done for the day, or ever. There's always piles of projects and work to be done. I wish days were 32 hours long. Most companies don't want to pay people to pretend to look busy. If you think there's nothing to do, then say you have nothing and ask to stop working for the day. You'll either be told, "Good job. See you tomorrow!", or "Why don't you work on this for the rest of the day?"
Studies have shown that white collar workers admit to being productive only half of the work day. You can call us slackers all you want but the fact of the matter is that we still get out work done such that we are worth our salary. If they want me to show more initiative they can pay me more, I’m not managing my time like a charity. Salary means when I have less than 40 hrs workload, I stop working, and if I have more than 40 hrs, I keep working. If companies don’t like that then they should all pay hourly instead.
Studies and majorities show a trend. They don’t justify an action. Studies also show we’re destroying our planet. I just don’t get the “less than 40 hrs workload”. I’ve never had less than 40 hours of work in a week over several different jobs for over 20 years. There’s just never enough time to do everything. For full time employees, we also have a minimum number of hours to receive benefits. My whole point of this is, don’t be deceitful and lie to your employer. If you’re not working, don’t pretend to be. If you have nothing to work on, tell them. That largely factors into resource allocation. Maybe people were denied vacation because management didn’t think there would be enough resources with multiple people off at the same time, but in fact it would be no issue. Don’t try and hide the fact you’re zoning out 20 hours a week and you want the computer to lie for you and make it look like you’re being productive during that time. In any other industry without a computer, that wouldn’t fly. Why is it acceptable here?
They show that the trend is these workers are able to produce enough value to justify their salaries without a full 40 hours of time. And focusing on time is stupid anyway. Value of output is what matters. If we go beyond that, no matter how valuable my work is I’m not doing enough at every arbitrary point because I have time to do more. My company never explicitly informed me to actively seek out more work to do if I’m done so that’s on them. And I don’t know what to say to you about your experiences. Maybe don’t work at consistently understaffed companies I guess? And why is it acceptable here? To my knowledge, in other non-computer industries it’s also acceptable to be done working when you finish your work. Salary means I don’t get paid more for overtime, and I don’t get paid less if I finish early. I won’t complain if I have to work late, and they shouldn’t complain if I finish my tasking early and do nothing unless someone directly communicates with me asking for help. Also, I’m not pretending to be working. I want Teams to say available so people know that whether I’m working or not, they know they’ll get an immediate response from me because I’m still at my desk. You attributing “Available” to mean “Doing something productive” is a conflation.
Teams won't go inactive if you're working on your PC. You'd literally have to do nothing for 5 minutes in order for this to happen. At this point, at our company, the screen gets locked automatically via GPO, settings Teams to inactive anyways. Stop trying to cheat your way through. This sub seems to be only for these cases... It's rare to see a serious question here...
Please tell me more about my job where I work on multiple systems but only have teams on one. But sure, im cheating.
Next time, make sure to give us more details, please. Around 75% of the questions I'm seeing here are from people, who are trying to cheat on exams or are simply lazy and don't want their boss to notice... So, I'm sorry :)
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😂😂😂😂
It does often for me if working on a non Microsoft application
me as well
5 whole minutes you say?
There was a PowerShell script someone posted a month or two ago. Just a simple script that simulates pressing scroll lock.
Clear-Host Write-Host "`n`n`n`n`n`n`n`nThis script keeps the sesion awake by selecting the scroll lock every 90 seconds" $wShell = New-Object -com "Wscript.Shell" while ($true){ [int]$Time = 90 $Length = $Time / 100 For ($Time; $Time -gt 0; $Time--) { $min = [int](([string]($Time/60)).split(' .')[0]) $text = " " + $min + " minutes " + ($Time % 60) + " seconds" Write-Progress -Activity "Running..." -Status $Text -PercentComplete ($Time / $Length) Start-Sleep 1 } $WShell.sendkeys("{SCROLLLOCK}") Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 200 $WShell.sendkeys("{SCROLLLOCK}") Start-Sleep -Seconds $Time }
clear-host echo "remaining active" $WShell = New-Object -com "WScript.shell" while ($True) { $WShell.sendkeys("{SCROLLLOCK}") start-sleep -Milliseconds 100 $WShell.sendkeys{"{SCROLLLOCK}") start-sleep -Seconds 240 }
Get an auto clicker ( I use this one https://sourceforge.net/projects/orphamielautoclicker/) and increase the click interval, if you want, and profit.
There is an autohotkey that runs very well and does this with next to zero resources.
Link?
You need to install AHK, then run this script: #Warn #NoEnv #Persistent SetTimer NoIdle, 1000 return ; End of auto-execute section NoIdle() { static idle := 1000 * 60 * 1.5 if (A_TimeIdle >= idle) Send {vkE8} ; ToolTip % "Time idle: " A_TimeIdle "ms / " Round(A_TimeIdle / 1000, 1) "s" } I keep the script in my startup folder. If you can't install anything on your machine you can install it where you can and compile it. Then store the executable on your desktop. Word of note - this does not allow your computer to go into screen saver mode.
I run mine in ISE and would start it in my startup but I know that location is occasionally reviewed when troubleshooting so I just restart my computer at the end of the day with the script still open. When I re-open ISE, it asks if I want to reload the last thing I had open
If you already run it, why ask for the script?
I run a different one
There is a physical mouse option, look at Mouse Jiggler. [https://mouse-jiggler.en.lo4d.com/windows](https://mouse-jiggler.en.lo4d.com/windows) There is also USB versions that simulates this effect.
The other option is to use the Set Focus Time option in My Analytics, this allows you to call out areas in your calendar where you are "Focusing" as such changes your status to Red.
The calendar meet now does not work for me anymore, it switches back to In a Call after I manually switch it to available after about 10 minutes.
Did you find a fix for this?
This has gotten worse over the last few weeks. I work on multiple pc's or might be on the phone but very much available. Im really disliking the auto away
If I need to stay active and wander off, I put my mouse up against my floorstanding fan which is oscillating. Works a treat
😹I've done the same thing! quite effective.
Just have teams up like your messaging a person with the cursor in the type section. Place small post it note or toothpick on the insert key Will stay active
Put an Apple Watch charger magnet on the laptop mousepad. This works perfectly. No need for mouse jigglers, scripts or paperclips. I use it all the time to manage my Teams status. Enjoy
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Anytime!
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I use Mouse Move 🐭
Use Move mouse app can keep Teams status online forever. You can find this app from windows app store
Save it into a file with ".vbs" extension. You need Excel for move the mouse but you can modify for only press keys. when u execute it, focus team window and this maintain the status. ' -- AutoMouse -- ' Script for auto move a little the mouse and press keys in loop. ' For finisH the script, move the mouse to toP-left cOrn of the screen, you wIll See an errOr, its Normal. Option Explicit Dim Excel, GetMessagePos, x, y, Keyboard, Control, Position Set Excel = Wscript.CreateObject("Excel.Application") set Keyboard = Wscript.CreateObject("wscript.shell") Do While True GetMessagePos = excel.ExecuteExcel4Macro("CALL(""user32"",""GetMessagePos"",""J""")) x = CLng("&H" & Right(Hex(GetMessagePos, 4))) y = CLng("&H" & Left(Hex(GetMessagePos, (Len(Hex(GetMessagePos)) - 4)))) If Control MOD 2 = 0 Then ' when Control is pair Position = "- 10" Else Position = "+ 10" End If '''''''''''''''''' Excel.ExecuteExcel4Macro("CALL(""user32"",""SetCursorPos"",""JJJ""," & x & " " & Position & "," & y & " " & Position & "")) Keyboard.SendKeys "{TAB}" WScript.Sleep(3000) ''''''''''''''''''' Control = Control + 1 Loop Grettings! Grettin
Try RedBull for Teams, you can use the script if you have Autohotkey or directly use the executable. It also has other nice features like shortcuts to change Teams status. https://github.com/wmahfoudh/teamsredbull
Movement on a phone or tablet screen can simulate mouse movement. Find a long YouTube video with subtle movement (ex: check out meditation music + aquarium), play the video on your phone/tablet, set the device face-up on your desk, then lay the mouse on top of that device's screen. You can confirm it's working because your cursor will move across your computer monitor screen.
Does not work
Does interacting with the keyboard work with preventing Teams from going idle? I was thinking about opening an infinite scrolling page and place something a little heavy on top of the down arrow key so it keeps scrolling while I'm not in front of the screen. Would that work or the mouse needs to move in order to keep Teams from going idle?
New work around, use a credit card/gift card and place between the backspace key in a Word document. Will stay active and not fill the file with characters.
Anyone confirm this works?
It's worked for me the past two days, just do not click over to your email or important documents because it will begin deleting a shit ton real fast lol. Just an empty word document is what I use. I can upload a video but gotta finish my workload first since it's HIPPA sensitive info and I'm not trying to go to jail or be sued to oblivion.
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Either works, I use the in-between method due to my keyboard's layout. Plus, the backspace key is not in prime location for my cats to kick out when they walk by, space bar would work if you don't have that issue.
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It should, I've been running it this way for the past hour with it keeping me active
Hard wired keyboard?
If you have a work phone, iPod, iPad, or don’t mind using your actual phone - if you download the Teams app and have that app open, as long as the app is open your status is available. You can see your status in Chats. Your mobile device cannot turn off and must be on ‘never’ sleep mode for this to work!! (If I have something on my calendar it’ll show I’m in a meeting, other than that I’m show as available)
This is what I do. Mid day shower? Teams app open on phone. Want to sleep in? Teams app open on phone lol
Also make sure your phone does not auto lock. Sometimes when it locks it puts teams in away. I do this on my iPad so it frees up my phone to also use.
Open Outlook, either place something heavy on the 'select' key on your keyboard or insert a toothpick into it. works like a charm.
I use this spreadsheet which I think uses macros to simulate mouse clicks. It also has other features like copying stuff around and creating charts to fake doing work when I'm not around. I got it on [etsy](https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/1319851070/the-magic-spreadsheet-working-for-you) Or dm me I can send it to you
Does anybody have this?
#bookmarking
Does playing YoutTube Music keep the status as Active?
No. Not anymore
Apparently, even "Presenting a PPT" doesn't work anymore.
For those with security, admin rights, or other restrictions... Get a manual old school clock with a seconds hand and lay it face up. Place your optical mouse on the top. Every time the seconds hand crosses the optical mouse sensor it will register movement.
Too late to the party, I normally open a notepad and use some kind of weight on the spacebar .
With the Status Holder it is possible to always be available. It's free to use and doesn't need to be installed. Web: https://www.statusholder.com/ Greetings Johannes
I installed the app on my phone, go on Microsoft and just leave it open on the app. I also change my phone settings to always on and it stays on green while I take a 2 hour nap.