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Configure automatic detection of work location in Microsoft Teams

Automatic detection of work location keeps users' work locations up to date and helps users to find and connect with each other when they are in the office. You can enable location autodetection for your entire organization or for only a group of users.

When autodetection is enabled, users' work locations can be updated through two signals: connection to a wireless network or connection to a desk peripheral, such as a monitor. As an admin, you can choose to set up either one or both of these signals. Setting up both signals improves the accuracy of user work locations.

Note

Automatic detection of work location by plugging into peripherals at a desk is available now. Automatic detection of work location using a wireless network connection is currently in preview and will be widely available in the near future.

When users connect to peripherals on a desk or to wireless networks, their locations can automatically update to In the Office or to a specific building. The specificity of user location updates depends on your Places configuration and whether users consent to sharing their work location and building location.

The detected work location lasts until the end of a user's working hours. If users connect after their set work hours, their work locations are not set. Users can go to Set your work hours and location in Outlook for more information on setting work hours.

Important

By default, users are opted out of work location detection. Users are prompted to provide consent for automatic location detection in the Teams desktop client on Windows or macOS. It is not possible for admins to consent on users' behalf. Go to User control for more information on how users can opt in or opt out of location detection.

Prerequisites

User control

Important

By default, users are opted out of work location detection. Users are prompted to provide consent for automatic location detection in the Teams desktop client on Windows or macOS. It is not possible for admins to consent on users' behalf.

Users who want to use work location detection must first have location sharing enabled in the operating system on their devices and in the Teams app as explained in Manage location sharing in Microsoft Teams.

After an admin enables work location detection policy in Teams and after users enable location sharing on their devices, users can consent to location autodetection. Go to First things to know about bookable desks in Microsoft Teams for more information on how users can opt in or opt out of location detection.

Enable work location detection policy in Teams

Note

  • The same policy is used for updating users' work locations via connection to a wireless network or connection to desk peripherals. If you previously enabled the work location detection policy, you can skip this section.

  • By enabling the work location detection policy, the admin consents to prompting each user for consent to share user location.

  1. Create a new Teams work location detection policy instance:

    New-CsTeamsWorkLocationDetectionPolicy -Identity wld-enabled -EnableWorkLocationDetection $true

  2. Add users or groups for whom you want to enable autodetection to the policy instance:

    Grant-CsTeamsWorkLocationDetectionPolicy -PolicyName wld-enabled -Identity testuser@testorg.example.com

Go to New-CsTeamsWorkLocationDetectionPolicy for more information on how to configure the policy.

Enable automatic detection of location via peripheral plug-in

Desk peripherals must be associated with desk pools or individual desks for automatic detection of location via peripheral plug-in to work. Go to Configure desk peripherals for more information. After configuring peripherals, wait 24–48 hours for your changes to propagate before testing location autodetection.

When a user is signed into Teams on their Windows or macOS device and then plugs into a peripheral that an admin has configured at a desk that is available to book, then their work location automatically updates to In the office. If the desk pool or individual desk is parented to a building, the user's work location updates to a specific building.

To learn more about the end-user experience, go to First things to know about bookable desks in Microsoft Teams.

Enable automatic detection of location via connection to a wireless network

Note

Automatic detection of work location using a wireless network connection is currently in preview and will be widely available in the near future.

To enable automatic detection of location via connection to a wireless network, an admin must first configure buildings and floors, then configure the SSID list and configure the BSSID list.

After configuration is complete, when a user is signed into Teams on their Windows or macOS device and they connect to a building wireless network, their work location changes to a specific building. If a user hasn't consented to location autodetection, then their work location changes to In the Office.

Configure the SSID list

  1. Identify the SSIDs of your wireless networks.

  2. Configure the SSID list in Places with the following command. You can separate multiple SSIDs with a semicolon ( ; ).

    Set-PlacesSettings -Collection Presence -WorkplaceWifiNetworkSSIDList 'Default:SSID-1;SSID-2'

If you configure the SSID list but do not also configure the BSSID list, then users' locations show as In the office when they connect to a wireless network. To detect users' building locations when they connect to a wireless network, you must also configure the BSSID list.

Configure the BSSID list

To map BSSIDs to buildings in the Places directory:

  1. Create a .csv file containing all BSSIDs and their corresponding building names. The file must include a header row with the fields BSSID and BuildingName.

    BSSID BuildingName
    D0:4D:C6:AA:1B:20 Dublin 5
    A1:4D:B6:25:1B:40 Dublin 5
    15:AD:C6:AF:1B:11 building 4

  2. Map building names to Places directory buildings:

    Add-WifiDevices -Action MapBuildings -InputFilePath test-file.csv

    This command compares the building names from your input file with Places directory building names (case insensitive). It then generates a BuildingMapping.csv file that shows the building names from your input file and their corresponding Places directory building names. Each building name with no matches is shown on its own line.

    BuildingName PlacesDirectoryBuildingName
    Dublin 5 Dublin 5
    Building 4 building 4
    bldg3
    vuilding 2

    This command also generates a PlacesDirectoryBuildings.csv file. This file lists all available Places directory buildings and is intended to help with manual mapping.

  3. Update BuildingMapping.csv as necessary so that all building names correspond to valid Places directory building entries.

  4. Upload the BSSID list:

    Add-WifiDevices -Action UploadEntries -InputFilePath test-file.csv -BuildingMappingFile mapping-file.csv

Manage Places directory entries individually

If you prefer to manage device entries individually, you can use the following cmdlets:

Note

When using these cmdlets, ensure that the BSSID is set to both the DeviceId and MACAddress fields.