I’ve been having a problem with the application Microsoft Teams. I had to download it because it’s the only chat we use at my job and I am only permitted to use it while I am on the clock. I do not use it outside of work whatsoever. Usually at work, a coworker will say, “Did you get my message?” I already know they’re talking about a message through Teams and no, I did not get a message. This led me to realizing the notifications for Teams were off, so I turned it on. This is great because now I get a little ding when I receive a message at work. The problem is, I also receive messages while I’m not at work. This wouldn’t be a problem except that my job is active 24/7 and full of group chats that teams talk to each other through. This means I receive notifications at all hours of the day as well as night. Usually I could sleep through it, but since the ringer needs to be on a loud setting for my alarm in the morning, the notifications for Teams would ding loudly all night. It was a Pain Point for me - it was simply frustrating. If I turned notifications off, I would miss out on messages from coworkers. Last week, I drove from my office to the other side of town to fix a printer. I had to drive all the way back to the office to grab more tools. On my way back to the other side of town to fix the printer, I missed several notifications from my coworker saying the issue was, in fact, actually resolved and I did not need to waste time, gas, and miles on my car driving there and back once again. I wish I had seen that message.
If I turned on notifications for Teams, I would get dings that wake me up at night. If I turned notifications off, I would miss messages from coworkers while at work. I tried getting into the routine of turning notifications on while at work and off when I’m home, but I could never remember to do it and it took too many steps. The accessibility of toggling the notifications on or off for Teams specifically would involve navitagint to: Settings, Notifications, scroll all the way down to Teams, and then toggle the notifications either on or off. This was too many steps to do at both the start and end of my shift. When I get to work, I like to just get to work and when it's time to go home, I like to just go home. I don't like taking the time to scroll through my phone to find that feature, even though it takes seconds. Toggling the notifications required an excessive amount of time on task, which felt lengthy and became frustrating.
My manager told me to configure the settings for a Work Focus on my iPhone. He explained this would allow or silence notifications from either certain contacts on my phone or applications. I could even set a schedule for the Work Focus to turn itself on and filter my notifications so I wouldn’t need to remember to toggle any notifications on or off!
The user interface for the Work Focus on the iPhone was simple enough to navigate. I set the schedule for the Work Focus to be on the hours I work every week: Tuesday and Thursday 8 AM - 1 PM and Saturday 8 AM - 4:30 PM. I had the option to either allow or silence notifications. I chose to allow notifications. For the specific app, I chose Microsoft Teams. I believed this would allow notifications from Microsoft Teams only in the hours I am at work every week.
I thought my problems were gone and my life would be easier. The next day at work, a coworker asked me, “Did you get my message?” I instantly checked the chat and sure enough, I had gotten a message from them and I received no actual notification. No vibrate, no ding, nothing. I realized the actual Notification settings for Microsoft Teams was toggled off, I felt silly and toggled it on. Surely there would be no more issues. I was wrong. At midnight that night, some coworkers were sending memes back and forth to each other to pass the time during the night shift while I tried to ignore the loud wave of notifications coming from the app. Since I configured the Work Focus to allow notifications from Teams the hours I’m at work, I assumed it would silence notifications while I am not at work. I asked the mobile specialist at my job about my problem. He told me to also set my Personal Focus to specifically silence notifications from Teams the hours I am not at home: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday 12 AM - 11:59 PM, Tuesday and Thursday 12 AM - 7:59 AM and 1:01 PM - 11:59 PM, Saturday 12 AM - 7:59 AM and 4:31 PM - 11:59 PM.
This was already becoming a nuisance. Now surely, I would receive notifications from Teams only when I am at work. Once again, the next day at work, my coworker asked me, “Did you get my message?” I was furious. I talked to the mobile guy again and had him toggle the Focus settings on my phone himself and send me messages on Teams to test if it would work right. We tried using only the Work Focus, only the Personal Focus, and even both at the same time. We tried setting the Work Focus to silence notifications the hours I am not at work and the Personal Focus to allow notifications while at work. In the end, we both sat there experiencing user frustration as the technology failed to work as intended. I never achieved my goal and we both ended up giving up. I now and forever have to manually turn on the notifications for Teams as soon as I get to work and off when I get home.