Microsoft is working on a simple update for Teams that should help address common issues with international collaboration.
According to a new entry in the company’s product roadmap, Microsoft Teams users will soon benefit from a facility that highlights each users’ current time-zone.
“You can easily find out the local time of the people you collaborate with by checking the profile card,” the listing explains.
The feature is still currently under development, but should roll out to all Microsoft Teams users by the end of January, 2022.
Microsoft Teams on tour
Although small businesses are less likely to make use of the new local time feature, it could prove extremely helpful for employees at larger enterprises with colleagues scattered across the globe, or for anyone who travels regularly for work.
For example, the ability to quickly check which colleagues are online and when should make it easier for managers to schedule a cross-team meeting or determine to whom to delegate a time-sensitive task.
If someone has their notifications turned on, meanwhile, the new feature will minimize the chances of a colleague disturbing them at an inopportune time with an unimportant task or query.
Since the transition to remote working, many people have also developed the habit of leaving messages for co-workers to discover when they first log on in the morning. Although the utility of this practice is obvious, it has the effect of making the person feel bombarded before they’ve had a chance to get their feet under the desk.
While the new time-zone feature does nothing to disincentivize this practice, the likelihood of accidentally falling foul of the collaboration faux pas is lessened.
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