If you've seen a headline about Teams tracking people's Wi-Fi, it's about a real feature, and it's rolling out now. It's called Workplace Check-In, and it's part of Microsoft Places, the workspace-scheduling layer Microsoft's been building into Teams and Outlook. It's caused a fair bit of noise, some of it fair, some of it overstated. Here's what it actually does.
How it works
When your device connects to your organisation's configured office Wi-Fi network, or to a registered piece of office hardware like a shared monitor, Teams treats that as a signal that you're physically in the building. Your work location updates to reflect it, and that shows up in a few places: your contact card, floor plans in Places, and scheduling views in Outlook, so colleagues can see roughly who's around.
Disconnect from that network, or never connect in the first place, and there's nothing to check in against. Your location shows as Remote.
The check only happens during the working hours you've set in your Outlook calendar, and Microsoft's own documentation is specific that it does not store historical location data or track movement. It's a same-day, in-building-or-not signal, not a location history.
Who's actually in control of it
This is the part worth understanding properly, because it's where the real friction sits. Workplace Check-In is off by default for every organisation. But turning it on isn't an individual choice: it's a tenant-level setting that an IT admin switches on, the same way they'd roll out any other Microsoft 365 feature.
That means, in practice, if your employer enables it, you don't get a personal toggle to opt out while still using the office Wi-Fi. The realistic way to avoid checking in, short of an admin-level exemption, is to not connect your device to the configured network. Whether that's practical for you obviously depends on your job.
Microsoft's public position, from the team behind Places, is that the signal is narrow by design: it only fires on networks the organisation has specifically configured, and doesn't extend to tracking you anywhere else. That's a reasonable technical claim. It doesn't fully answer the separate question of whether employees get a real say in whether it's switched on for them at all, which is the part that's drawn genuine pushback from privacy-minded commentators.
What it isn't
Worth being clear about the boundary, because it's easy to conflate this with the other thing Teams watches: your presence status, the green or yellow dot next to your name.
Those are two completely separate systems. Your presence status is driven by keyboard and mouse activity, and whether your screen is locked. Workplace Check-In is driven entirely by which Wi-Fi network your device is on. One is about whether you're active. The other is about where you physically are. Nothing about Workplace Check-In looks at your keyboard, your mouse, or what you're doing on the device at all, and nothing about your presence status looks at your network connection.
That also means nothing that manages your presence status, a mouse jiggler, an auto clicker, any of it, has any effect on Workplace Check-In one way or the other. It's simply reading a different signal.
Where that leaves you
If your organisation hasn't enabled it, none of this touches you yet, though it's worth knowing it exists before it does. If it has, the honest summary is: it's a same-day, network-based, in-office-or-not signal, not silent GPS tracking or a movement log, but also not something you get to personally switch off if your employer has turned it on. If that distinction matters to you, your IT or HR team is the one with the actual answer for your workplace, not a setting anywhere in your own Teams client.
And if what actually brought you here was the more familiar worry, "can Teams tell I've stepped away from my desk," that's a different feature entirely, covered in our guide to keeping your Teams status green.
Frequently asked questions
What is Teams Workplace Check-In?
It's a feature of Microsoft Places that updates your work location automatically when your device connects to your organisation's configured office Wi-Fi, or to a registered peripheral like a shared monitor. That location then shows up on your contact card, in Places floor plans, and in Outlook scheduling.
Does Workplace Check-In track my exact location or movements?
No. Microsoft's own description of the feature is that it does not store historical location data or track movement. It's a binary signal, in the configured office network or not, checked during your scheduled Outlook working hours, and it clears again at the end of the day.
Can I turn Workplace Check-In off myself?
It's off by default for every organisation, but the decision to turn it on sits with a tenant admin, not with individual employees. If your organisation has enabled it, the practical way to not check in is to not connect to the configured office network. Ask your IT team directly if you want a definite answer for your workplace.
Is Workplace Check-In the same thing as the Away/Active status in Teams?
No, they're unrelated systems. Your green dot presence status is about keyboard and mouse activity on your device. Workplace Check-In is about which physical network you're connected to. A mouse jiggler or auto clicker affects the first and has no effect on the second, since check-in doesn't look at device activity at all.