A Closer Look at Status Locks
With the recent release of OfficeStatus v4.5 comes a powerful new in/out board feature – user status locks.
Locking a user’s status prevents it from being changed by external forces such as calendar sync, presence detection features (e.g. “status events”), status scheduling etc. When a user’s status is locked, it can only be unlocked via direct user interaction.
So how is this feature useful? Well, it’s actually designed to assist with a number of specific scenarios, but one common one is when an employee unexpectedly calls in sick. That OfficeStatus user may very well have an active status schedule, or may be actively syncing their status with their Outlook/Exchange calendar. In such cases, the user’s status will be automatically updated during sync operations, which is probably not what you want if the user is out sick.
Status locks resolve this problem by allowing qualified users (admin, receptionist, or manager role members) to temporarily prevent status changes for such users. As mentioned above, only a user-initiated status change will effectively unlock it.
It’s also possible to use screen monitoring software if you have staff that are working remotely so you can use that to see exactly what staff are doing.
OfficeStatus v4.5 also provides a site-wide switch (off by default) that can prevent “normal users” (those that aren’t part of the admin, receptionist, or manager roles) from locking their own statuses.
Finally, status locks can also be observed in user status reports (an additional column has been added for this purpose).