Setup needed for MS Teams status change subscription?

Question

Setup needed for MS Teams status change subscription?

Tenneti Sudheer Kumar 20

We currently use application permissions (client credentials) for Presence.Read.All and may extend it to Presence.ReadWrite.All. These permissions will let us use presence get and presence set / clear for MS teams integration.

We also need to subscribe to user status changes. Can presence change notification subscriptions be created using application permissions, or do they require delegated permissions?

We need to monitor presence for multiple users across several customer tenants. What is the recommended approach?

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Answer 1

Jayden-P 24,710 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @Tenneti Sudheer Kumar

Presence change notification subscriptions require delegated permissions and cannot be created using application permissions.

Microsoft Graph explicitly does not support application (app-only) permissions for presence subscriptions; instead, they must be created in the context of a signed-in user (delegated) with permissions such as Presence.Read.All.

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Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/changenotifications-for-presence

You can also see the alternatives mentioned in the document. Polling for presence uses APIs like GET presence or getPresencesByUserId to repeatedly check a user’s status. This approach works well with application permissions and allows monitoring without a signed-in user, making it suitable for background services.

However, it requires continuous API calls, which increases traffic and resource usage, and it does not provide real-time updates. There will be a delay depending on how often the app checks.

You can also try using a hybrid model within a single application.

The app uses application permissions to retrieve presence data via polling APIs, and delegated permissions (with a signed-in user) to create and manage presence subscriptions for real-time updates.

I hope this information helps.

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Jayden-P 24,710 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-25T07:09:07.5533333+00:00

Hi @Tenneti Sudheer Kumar

Have you checked the provided answer? Any update would be great.
Sayali-MSFT 6,116 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-25T10:51:44.53+00:00

Hi @Tenneti Sudheer Kumar, Could you please confirm if your issue has resolved with provided suggestions or still looking for any help?
Tenneti Sudheer Kumar 20 Reputation points

2026-06-25T12:58:48.5833333+00:00

Hi, sorry for not following up quick.
I have another question.
For delegated Presence.Read.All subscriptions, does the signed-in user need any special Entra role or Teams role, or can a standard licensed Teams user create and renew bulk presence subscriptions (up to 650 users) after tenant admin consent is granted?
Jayden-P 24,710 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-25T13:36:45.0433333+00:00

After admin consent is granted, a standard licensed Teams user can create and manage bulk presence subscriptions (up to 650 users) using delegated Presence.Read.All. No special Entra or Teams role required were mentioned in the article.
Tenneti Sudheer Kumar 20 Reputation points

2026-06-25T13:51:03.62+00:00

Okay. Thank you for the answer. I have couple more questions before my doubt is resolved.

A. Can a single watcher user create and maintain multiple bulk presence subscriptions for the same application? Docs mention "A single user can create one presence subscription per unique application" but I am not able to completely understand that.

B. What happens when the "watcher" user is not part of a Team or has no relationship with the monitored users? Can this watcher subscribe to all users in the tenant or only users it can "see"?

The docs imply tenant-wide access via Presence.Read.All, but I'd want explicit confirmation.
Jayden-P 24,710 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-25T14:23:56.3+00:00

After gathering information, here is what I found:

A single watcher user and application combination cannot create multiple presence subscriptions; instead, it is limited to a single subscription container per user and per app. That subscription can monitor up to ~650 users.

Ref: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/answers/questions/783632/possible-limit-to-presence-subscription-via-graph

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/122525/graph-change-notifications-for-teams-presence-is-v

B. A watcher user does not need to be part of the same Team or have any direct relationship with the monitored users. With the Presence.Read.All delegated permission, the watcher can subscribe to the presence of any user within the tenant.
Ref: https://graphpermissions.merill.net/permission/Presence.Read.All
Note: This information is provided as a convenience to you. These sites are not controlled by Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. Please ensure that you fully understand the risks before using any suggestions from the above link.
Tenneti Sudheer Kumar 20 Reputation points

2026-06-26T05:30:38.58+00:00

Thanks for the information @Jayden-P But if a tenant has more than 650 users, what is Microsoft's recommended architecture for monitoring presence changes across the entire tenant?
Jayden-P 24,710 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-26T08:32:03.57+00:00

If an application needs to monitor presence for all users in a tenant, it will need to use multiple delegated users to create and manage subscriptions. Since each presence subscription can monitor up to 650 users, the tenant’s users need to be divided into smaller groups.

Each watcher account then creates and maintains its own subscription for its assigned group, allowing the application to scale and collectively cover the entire tenant.

Microsoft’s documentation only explicitly states that a single user can create one presence subscription per unique application. The multi-watcher approach isn’t officially documented as a recommended design; it's more of a practical workaround based on those limitations.
Jayden-P 24,710 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-06-29T07:58:14.8633333+00:00

Hi @Tenneti Sudheer Kumar

Have you checked the additional information? Any update would be great.