Teams notifications

[Matt38]

Hi all,

I’m new to Android (work phone), around 2 weeks ago our IT department rolled out an update and since them i’m just getting hammered with non-stop notifications from the Android system saying ‘Your location can be accessed, your IT admin is allowing teams to access your location’. These notifications are every couple of mins, sometimes only 30 seconds apart, i’m assuming when the app refreshes it’s generating this message.

These notifications are every couple of minutes, all day, every day! The mrs is complaining, i’m ready to throw the phone out of the window, and our IT department is useless and can’t advise, does anyone know how to just turn off these notifications without turning off legitimate notifications for teams calls/messages?

Thanks

70C50A64-1458-4520-8101-AF7E767EF914

• Matt38
• Apr 24, 2021

 

[Hadron]

I'm wondering whether this is an Android thing, a Teams thing or a "device administered by someone else" thing, since I don't receive such notifications from the apps I do allow to have location access (I occasionally see a "location" icon in the notification bar, but that is silent).

Do your useless IT department allow you to withdraw notification permission from Teams? It's unlikely that any actual functionality depends on giving it that permission, after all. Have you tried telling them that you will have to turn off all notifications if they don't stop it?

I don't know what Android version you have, but you could try going into Settings > Apps and Notifications > Notifications, show all from last 7 days, use the little 3-dot "context" menu to "show system", select Android System and see what things you are allowed to turn off from there. This is for fairly stock Android 11, with older versions or a manufacturer who rearranges the settings (e.g. Samsung) it might be a bit different. I'm suggesting you look there because you said that the notification said it was from "Android System". You could also try tapping on the notification (or a gear symbol on the notification if there is one) and see whether that gives you any option to shut it up. The problem is that with a remotely-administered device there will probably be more things that you cannot control (my biggest annoyance is messages that Google think I should not be allowed to block, e.g. Play Services whinging after phone calls because there are permissions I've not granted it - none of which, of course, are at all relevant for phone calls).

If it were actually Teams producing the notifications I'd suggest you look at the options for that app's notifications and see which you can turn off (similar process to above for Android System). But I suspect that it isn't actually Teams generating the notifications (I don't use Teams - I don't work in Microsoft environments - so don't know what options it might have).

 

[Matt38]

I'm wondering whether this is an Android thing, a Teams thing or a "device administered by someone else" thing, since I don't receive such notifications from the apps I do allow to have location access (I occasionally see a "location" icon in the notification bar, but that is silent).

Do your useless IT department allow you to withdraw notification permission from Teams? It's unlikely that any actual functionality depends on giving it that permission, after all. Have you tried telling them that you will have to turn off all notifications if they don't stop it?

I don't know what Android version you have, but you could try going into Settings > Apps and Notifications > Notifications, show all from last 7 days, use the little 3-dot "context" menu to "show system", select Android System and see what things you are allowed to turn off from there. This is for fairly stock Android 11, with older versions or a manufacturer who rearranges the settings (e.g. Samsung) it might be a bit different. I'm suggesting you look there because you said that the notification said it was from "Android System". You could also try tapping on the notification (or a gear symbol on the notification if there is one) and see whether that gives you any option to shut it up. The problem is that with a remotely-administered device there will probably be more things that you cannot control (my biggest annoyance is messages that Google think I should not be allowed to block, e.g. Play Services whinging after phone calls because there are permissions I've not granted it - none of which, of course, are at all relevant for phone calls).

If it were actually Teams producing the notifications I'd suggest you look at the options for that app's notifications and see which you can turn off (similar process to above for Android System). But I suspect that it isn't actually Teams generating the notifications (I don't use Teams - I don't work in Microsoft environments - so don't know what options it might have).

Hi Hadron, thanks for the reply.

I’ve just been in the settings looking and under Android system there’s nothing there really, same with Teams, it’s saying they aren’t sending a lot of notifications..... except teams is going mental, sending hundreds a day, Microsoft Onedrive is the highest with 80 a day apparently, but I actually never get these notifications! Our email client Boxer is the second biggest culprit with 24 a day which is about right and expected for new email notifications.

No idea what to do, IT are like ‘we don’t know, just put up with it’, but they have no idea how bad this is, my phone constantly pinging. Most of the settings are locked out in the work profile, I think you can see in the screenshot in my first post, there’s no cog icon in the notification to click, permissions for work apps are all locked out, including notifications on the Android systems. I’ve had this phone 3 months now and it was fine until this last update, I’m wondering if it’s a bug in their build? The only option I have is to disable notifications for teams and people will just have to email or call me, or I could try disabling ‘other’ notifications in the teams settings, but not sure if that will screw up normal operation. At this point I’m just ready to log out of teams and leave it, if the company aren’t happy then they’re going to have to get IT to sort this out.

Thanks

 

[Hadron]

Hmm, I guess you could turn off "other" and see what happens. My guess is that it won't affect anything important (i.e. anything that fits those other categories).

The real problem will be if these things are Android System notifications, as your first post suggested, since it probably won't let you hide all notifications from that. On my phone there are many, many categories of notification under that one, so I wonder why it shows nothing for yours?

If nothing else works I'd be inclined to try turning Teams notifications off and see whether that makes any difference (it may not if Teams is causing something else to generate the warnings). Then sure, I'd be inclined to make it their problem: leave it on their desk for them to experience and tell them you'll take it back when they've fixed it, not before, and meanwhile inform your manager that IT have screwed your phone up and so you'll be without it until they sort it out. But as an academic I may have a bit more autonomy in such things than some employers would allow.