Presify vs a PowerShell Teams presence script
If you have searched for how to capture Microsoft Teams presence history, you have probably found a PowerShell script. It is the natural first move for an admin: Microsoft Graph exposes a presence endpoint, so you can poll it on a schedule and write the results somewhere.
A script is a genuinely good answer for some situations. This is an honest look at where it shines and where a maintained tool like Presify earns its place.
What the PowerShell approach actually does
A typical presence script signs in to Graph, reads the presence of a set of users on an interval, and appends each reading to a CSV or an HTML report. With enough effort you can chart it, schedule it, and scope it to a group.
That is the whole value and the whole limit: it does exactly what you build, and nothing you do not build.
Side by side
| Feature | PowerShell script | Presify |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free to write | Paid subscription |
| Capture reliability | Runs where you run it; misses samples if that machine is off | Runs continuously as a managed service |
| Storage | You own the files | Stored, queryable history |
| Timelines and trends | You build the charts | Built in, per person and per team |
| Anomaly flags | None unless you write them | Built in, with the math shown |
| Access control | None unless you build it | Role-based, owner and admin and monitor |
| Audit trail | None unless you build it | Append-only audit log |
| Retention and deletion | Manual | Plan-based retention, per-user and workspace-wide delete |
| Scoping | Easy to over-collect by accident | Guests excluded, group scoping, EEA/UK/Switzerland/Canada blocked |
| Maintenance | Yours forever | Ours |
When the script is the right call
- You have a one-off question and a quick CSV answers it.
- You are comfortable in PowerShell and Graph, and you enjoy owning the plumbing.
- It is a small number of people and you do not need retention, roles, or an audit trail.
There is nothing wrong with the script in those cases. It is the cheapest path to a single answer.
When a maintained tool earns its keep
- You need the history to be there later, captured reliably without babysitting a scheduled task.
- More than one person needs access, which means roles and an audit trail start to matter.
- You want presence turned into timelines, online-time trends, and anomaly flags without building the analysis yourself.
- You care about doing this carefully: bounded retention, easy deletion, read-only scope, and not accidentally collecting the whole directory.
That is the line where the script's "you build everything" becomes a cost rather than a feature, and a service that handles capture, storage, analysis, access, and retention pays for itself.
What Presify is, plainly
Presify reads Teams presence through the same Graph presence API on a schedule, stores each change, and turns it into timelines, trends, and anomaly flags. It is read-only, needs no agent (just a one-time admin consent), is tenant-isolated and US-based, and trims history automatically by plan. It describes what presence showed, not why, which is the right posture whether you use a script or a tool.
If the DIY script has stopped scaling, see how Presify works or start with one Microsoft sign-in. If you want the broader picture first, the guide to seeing Teams status history walks through every option.