Microsoft 365 March, Teams update adds a major change to how hybrid teams stay connected: you can now clearly see where your colleagues are working—whether they’re in the office, remote or in which specific building or floor. This new update is designed to remove the guesswork, reduce friction in those hybrid work environments and make in‑person collaboration easier to coordinate.
Rather than relying on outdated status messages or last‑minute chats, Teams now displays work location directly inside everyday workflows.
Well that’s Microsoft’s excuse anyway. With Microsoft not supporting a complete work from home (WFH) model, tools like this can easily push data to HR confirming days and hours employees are actually spending in the office environment.
What is this Location Service in the March Teams Update?
The March update will introduce automatic and visible work location signals inside Microsoft Teams. These signals appear alongside the availability tag and are visible across all profile cards, chats and participant lists.
Key features include:
- Clear indicators showing whether someone is in the office, working remotely or in a specific building or floor.
- The indicators will show “Nearby” when colleagues are in the same office location.
- With the ultimate aim to reduced need for manual status updates and confirmations.
This update builds on Microsoft’s broader hybrid‑work strategy through Microsoft Places, which connects Outlook, Teams and workplace presence data.
Where can I see a Colleagues’ Locations in Teams?
The location of a colleague will be prominent against their icon or tag just as their availability is. This way users can quickly determine where their team member is and work around their location appropriately.
Profile cards
Hover over someone’s profile photo and you’ll see their current work location displayed next to he already availability and time zone information.
One‑to‑one Team Chats
In direct chats, Teams will indicate when the other person is nearby, thereby allowing you to suggest a quick in‑person catch‑up if you’re in the same building.
Group chats and meetings
In group chats and meeting participant lists, users who’ve shared their location will show where they’re working from for that day. This will help teams decide whether a discussion should stay virtual or if there is an opportunity to move face‑to‑face.
How Does Teams Knows Where Someone Is ?
Microsoft is very explicit about how this works—and it has made it quiet clear what it doesn’t do.
Teams can update work location using:
- Company Wi‑Fi connections these are mapped to floors and office buildings
- Desk peripherals such as monitors or docking stations in managed offices
This therefore only allows Teams to identify building‑level presence, not precise or personal locations.
More importantly for your Sydney business:
- This new Teams location feature is off by default
- IT administrators decide whether to enable it or not
- Users must opt in before any automatic updates occur
- Locations are only shown during working hours and reset at the end of the day
Microsoft states that the feature is intended to support collaboration and is not designed for attendance tracking or surveillance.
Why This Might Matter for Hybrid Teams
I can personally see many use cases for this tech. Ultimately since PIP is primarily in the Sydney IT service business, it would be more appropriate to track service staff in the greater Sydney than what building they are in. I can see however, in the larger tech organisations of the US, a different building could be a substantial distance away.
Microsoft are also focusing highly on the hybrid work environments, typical of todays work environments.
Hybrid work only works when people can easily answer one question:
“Where is everyone today?”
This teams update helps hybrid staffed businesses by:
- Making it quicker and easier to plan in‑office collaboration days
- Reducing interruptions and time from messages like – “Are you in today?”
- Helping teams decide when an in‑person meeting makes sense
- Supporting flexible work without all those constant check‑ins
Again, Microsoft describes work location as an extension of presence—similar to availability, not a monitoring tool.
Privacy and Control: What Employees Should Know
Unsurprisingly, this update has sparked debate, I have already painted it with my cynical brush, albeit mainly tongue in cheek. If you read the headlines, just like mine, they have focused on “location tracking,” what do you expect Microsoft, this tool is the perfect click bait ? However Microsoft’s documentation has been clear and explicit in an attempt to soften this update with clear messages on the safeguards:
- No GPS tracking
- No home address visibility
- No tracking outside work hours
- No sharing outside the organisation
- Full user consent required
Even when enabled by IT management, currently users can still control whether they share their work location with colleagues. How you explain to the boss why its off might be another matter.
When Is This Location Service Rolling Out?
Microsoft has confirmed the global rollout is scheduled for March 2026, following earlier delays communicated through the Microsoft 365 Message Center (MC1081568).
Availability also may depend on:
- Tenant configuration
- Desktop Teams clients (Windows and macOS)
- Admin and user opt‑in settings
Of course if you need/want it earlier please just contact your PIP account manager.
So what do we really think about this Teams Location Update ?
As a hybrid user myself, I can definitely see many benefits in seeing who is in the office and who is not. There is nothing worse than shooting of a query or handing over work to a colleague, then wondering an hour or so latter why you haven’t heard back. You then find out they are else where for the morning and you have wasted all that time waiting. If I could clarify who was in for the day, without picking up the phone and asking the service manager, that would make delegation much quicker and easier.
As I referenced earlier, being in the IT service industry, it would also be a great addon for human resource management in the field. You could see what appointment a tech was up to on the days schedule without having to check the processed jobs etc. It would also provide quick rerouting of the ap[propriate service tech if a new priority 1 job came up in the area. Of course his tracking tech has been used in Australia for decades now and many of our clients use GPS tracking everyday, just for this purpose. So building it into teams, at least from my perspective isn’t that far off.
On the flip side, Teams of course is used by everyone of us, on our desktop, tablets and phones. Due to this wide coverage, the idea of “tracking” in such an attached and personal piece of software is going to have everyone pulling the privacy card and perhaps rightly so. The whole problem with that argument however is, if you are using Microsoft products (or Apple, Google, etc) then they as an offshore organisation are already tracking us. So if we, as a country are happy being tagged and tracked by the US (and others), why not provide this information to our peers and employees if its beneficial to all ?
Of course its never black and white, just like this update wont be, there will be businesses that utilise it for good and plenty that take advantage and exploit it for employee tracking and attendance.
