Microsoft Presence = Schrödinger’s Status

If you’ve ever worked in a Microsoft 365 environment, you’ve probably experienced the paradox firsthand:

You’re online. Outlook says you’re off. Teams says you’re active. Your coworkers think you’ve quit.

Congratulations... you’ve entered Microsoft’s version of quantum mechanics!

In theory, everything should “just work.” Teams and Outlook live happily together in the same shiny Microsoft 365 cloud, authenticated by the same Entra ID, sipping from the same Graph API fountain.

And yet… somehow, Outlook still insists you’re “Offline,” even while you’re mid-conversation in Teams and typing faster than an LLM on Red Bull.

It’s as if two roommates share the same house but still communicate by leaving sticky notes on the fridge.

The Mystery of the “OFF” Button...

You’d think a company with trillions in valuation could sync a green dot between two apps. But Outlook’s presence system still lives in a time capsule from the Skype for Business era, powered by ancient COM objects and the tears of sysadmins past.

Meanwhile, Teams operates in a parallel dimension: an Electron sandbox running Node.js, coffee, and good intentions. The two talk through a fragile API that occasionally takes a nap.

Result? Outlook Status: “OFF.” Teams Status: “Available.” You... visibly losing faith in Microsoft technology.

“Unified Presence,” Microsoft-Style...

Microsoft calls it Unified Presence.

That’s adorable.

It’s like calling two toddlers who won’t share toys “collaborative.”

Even Microsoft’s own documentation politely admits:

“Presence information may take several minutes to update.”

In SOC or NOC time, that’s roughly equivalent to “The outage is over, but Outlook still thinks you’re on vacation.”

Real-Life Scenarios...

• Scenario 1: You’re chatting in Teams. Outlook: “User is offline.” Coworker: “Guess I’ll email them instead.”

• Scenario 2: You’re on an incident bridge, ten alerts deep. Outlook: “Away since 9:12 AM.” Manager: “Where’s Jim? Is he out again?”

• Scenario 3: You restart your laptop. Microsoft: “We see you’ve signed in. We’ll let Outlook know sometime between now and the next fiscal quarter.”

The “Fixes”... That Don’t Fix

• Restart Teams. Restart Outlook. Restart your faith in humanity.

• Clear your cache. Delete databases, blob_storage, and all your hopes.

• Install the latest Office update that “improves presence reliability.” Spoiler: it doesn’t.

The Real Solution ?

At this point, the only truly reliable presence indicator is actual communication. If someone replies, they’re online. If not, they’re either busy, ignoring you, or trapped in Microsoft’s presence limbo.

Until Microsoft finally gives Teams and Outlook a shared brain, presence in Microsoft 365 will remain a quantum state... both “Available” and “Offline” simultaneously.

It’s not unified presence. It’s “Available(ish).”