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.

  • king_tronzington@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    189
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    5 days ago

    Wouldn’t your coworkers already know you’re working from home by, you know not seeing you at the office?

    • afk_strats@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      127
      ·
      5 days ago

      When I worked in an office, most of my team was in other offices across the world. But we had to be in the office for that TEAM BUILDING

        • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          18
          ·
          edit-2
          5 days ago

          Yup.

          Daily stand-up meeting

          On the phone because we’re decentralized

          Everyone’s actually sitting + hardly anyone’s even paying attention because they’re at their computers

        • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          5 days ago

          Even if the whole team is actually in the conference room…it’s one dude with a laptop who struggles to get the display working for 10 min then proceeds to just read the PowerPoint out loud.

          None of this required me putting on pants or being part of traffic.

        • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          5 days ago

          Even worse, it’s completely real. It was the common situation for me before corona. Also driving an entire day for a 1 hour meeting.

      • vinnymac@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 days ago

        I had to read this like six times, because it was so illogical my brain refused to comprehend.

    • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      5 days ago

      If your company is nationwide and has offices all over the country and you work on a distributed team where some people are on the west coast, some are central, and some are on the east coast. In this such event, none of your teammates will physically be able to tell if you are in the office. That’s what this feature is for.

      So we can all continue to work from home, from a prescribed office of our employers choosing.

        • Fester@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          18
          ·
          5 days ago

          We’re concerned that your home doesn’t look soul crushing enough. Please upgrade your home office by installing fluorescent tube lights and covering your walls with rough faded blue grey cloth, or we’ll need you to come into the office.

      • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        5 days ago

        What? How would this change anything in that scenario? You’re still doing a video call if you want to talk to them.

    • faltryka@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      5 days ago

      My “office” is a network of interconnected multi-story buildings. It’s actually really convenient for me to know if I need to go meet someone in person or just use video.

      Sometimes we have a room booked ahead of time and I learn they are wfh when I get to the empty room.

      • king_tronzington@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        21
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        That’s just poor common courtesy by your coworker. If you have a physical room booked and they are WFH they need to tell you so you don’t waste your time. You shouldn’t be relying on teams status

        • edric@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 days ago

          Yeah, that’s what the meeting invite RSVP is for.

          • candybrie@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            5 days ago

            Does your RSVP have options for remote vs in person? My options are “accept”, “decline”, and “tentative.” If I want to tell someone I’m remote that day, it needs to be a separate message.

            • edric@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              5 days ago

              You can respond with a message included. If I see the location as a physical room and not a zoom link, I accept/tentative and add a comment that I won’t be at the office on that day/time and if we can do it online instead.

        • 0x0@programming.dev
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          5 days ago

          OTOH, you should hold calls and meetings in specific rooms - even if the other party is WFH, not in the open space, so…

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 days ago

          Yeah, I only mark a meeting room if I’ll be in that meeting room, and I’ll only do that on the 2x/week when we’re expected to be in the office.

      • orclev@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        Sounds like all the meetings should just be done by video and nothing would be lost.

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    60
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    5 days ago

    It’s already started for me today. Teams now snitches on those who are remote and there’s no way to shut it off. My status is no longer just “Available”, it’s now “Available, Out of office”. Fuck Microsoft!

  • Goun@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    5 days ago

    Boy I hate MS, and I hate Outlook, and MS Teams, and offices, and companies, and work…

    Yet, I’m failing to understand what I’m supposed to be angry about here, can someone help?

    From what I understand, you set the work hours and people will know if you’re working or not based on that…? It doesn’t sound too controversial to me.

    Do people stay home without telling anyone and they wont be able to do that anymore? Or what?

    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      5 days ago

      It very clearly says it’ll be using your work hours and location information. MS is turning your hardware into a GPS tracker for your company.

      • Mbourgon everywhere@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        41
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        5 days ago

        Except since there’s no actual GPS tracker, it uses your IP address. Microsoft thinks I live in either Virginia or North Dakota or Florida, depending on which part of the company’s VPN I connect to.

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        5 days ago

        MS is turning your hardware into a GPS tracker for your company.

        I hate to break it to you but they are logging your location every time you log into their hardware… if you are using your own hardware, stop being an idiot and make your daddy buy you equipment required to do your job for him.

        • Willy@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          5 days ago

          pssh I wish I could use my own hardware. even if you get a great machine at first they never upgrade. do it like phones where you get an allowance if you use your own for work. I’d dual boot and always have top of the line

          • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            5 days ago

            if hey pay you allowance, that’s fine from economic perspective. i would still be a bit concerned from privacy side tho of sharing work and private device for anything.

    • TipRing@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      5 days ago

      I am in the middle of trying to get e911 functional for Teams direct route calls, based of lis data, my Teams can’t correctly determine the state I am in, much less my current address. It took multiple tickets to get our corporate headquarters to show up correctly instead of an address a half-mile away.

      I forsee getting a lot of tickets from this feature.

      • Goun@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        Shit, wtf? Don’t you set the location yourself? Why don’t they just ask your city or something instead of trying to play smart?

        • TipRing@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          4 days ago

          You can set it yourself but it then verifies your address is real using Bing maps and the database is really lacking. If it doesn’t find an entry it won’t let you enter it. I am told this will be moving to Azure maps soon which I hope is better.

          Anyway we are leveraging manual network entries tofind phones at our locations using the WAP bssid or, for ethernet, LLDP but the latter isn’t working. I can show LLDP coming in on a pcap but Teams doesn’t see it - another ticket for Microsoft.

  • qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    4 days ago

    And your VPN connection to work knows your endpoint…

    Interestingly, there’s another way of finding out if your coworker is in the office — just walk over to their desk.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    ·
    5 days ago

    Outlook will soon know if you’re properly dressed for work while you’re WFH in case you’re not. They will detect pink pixels on your camera. They will detect gurgling noises, thuds, clapping noises, spitting, long wave vibrations such as fun chair bouncing and short wave vibrations such as clipping your hair sounds. The future is worthless! I mean endless!

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 days ago

      So what if my boss knows when I’m fapping. Why else would they have scheduled an “all hands”?

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          5 days ago

          Ain’t no “I” in team, brother.

          All. Hands.

          Look to the left of you. Now look to the right. Now grab both them dicks.

          Edit: shit, I’m sitting between my dogs.

    • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      5 days ago

      Soon Microsoft full body detection (including feet)

      “Those loafers sure don’t look like heels Jenny! I expect you to be in your office attire at all times during work hours.”

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    43
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 days ago

    I don’t pretend I am in the office when I am not. I don’t even bother with hiding yellow. I am avaliable during business ours to get things done.

    If there is nothing to get done. I am shoot shit with coworkers in the office or doing laundry at home. If you need me, ping me and I will magically appear to take care your needs.

    Nice system, barely needs any management but they keep trying to “contribute” 🤡

    • stoly@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      5 days ago

      Exactly. Part of it is whether you’re doing assigned tasks. Part of it is being available for questions.

  • r0ertel@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    4 days ago

    OK, easy solution: don’t open outlook.

    Most of the time that I’m in the office, my laptop is closed anyways, you know, for collaboration.

  • lud@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    5 days ago

    I don’t get the problem. Isn’t this the entire point of registering your work location in outlook? Why would you add it and be surprised if others can see it?

    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.

    https://www.techradar.com/pro/watch-out-microsoft-outlook-could-soon-give-away-when-you-re-sneakily-working-from-home

    Microsoft 365 can help you manage and share your work schedule. New features allow you to specify more details about your work schedule: from where you’re working (remotely or in the office) and whether you work different hours on different days. In addition, you can schedule meetings with others based on their work location, view the work location on people’s profile card, and see your out of office time reflected in your location.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/set-your-work-hours-and-location-in-outlook-af2fddf9-249e-4710-9c95-5911edfd76f6

    The upcoming update even allows you to not share your location (Again not sure why you wouldn’t share your location since that’s the entire point of adding your location but whatever): https://windowsreport.com/outlooks-work-hours-and-location-statuses-will-become-optional/

    Am I completely crazy or is the article from tech radar complete bullshit?

  • 800XL@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    4 days ago

    Look. You are incapable of doing work anywhere but the office. Your collaborations severely lack. Somehow tho, when the executive class spends 10 hours in email it’s innovation. When you do it, you’re unproductive.

  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 days 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@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      5 days 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@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 days 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@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          5 days 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.

        • Telorand@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          5 days 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.

        • candybrie@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 days 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.

        • lud@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          5 days 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@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            5 days 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.

            • lud@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              5 days ago

              Do you mean it used the information from AD/Entra or was it tracking you?

              • gdog05@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                5 days 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@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        5 days ago

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

        • lud@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          5 days 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.

  • JWBananas@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    5 days ago

    Your M365 admin can already tell by your IP address. Just like they know when you’re looking at porn when your IP randomly hops states for a little while.

    • Blxter@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      5 days ago

      Who be looking at porn on the work PC lol. For me I have to give a ’ reason’ to disconnect form the work VPN. I do do anything on work PC besides work tbh

      • orclev@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        23
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        Yeah, never use a work device for anything you’re not actually getting paid to do. To do otherwise is just stupid. Save non-work stuff for your own devices.

      • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        5 days ago

        I know someone who has said that the office they use at a small firm probably was used by someone who would be not just looking at it, but potentially slinging rope as well.

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 days ago

    So they are using the information they have in Azure/Entra about where you login from and presenting it to other users through Outlook/Teams?

    Seems fine as long as they don’t include your exact address.

  • realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    5 days ago

    Imagine having so few people at the office that the only way people know you’re working remotely is your Outlook status