One of the biggest challenges for communication and collaboration comes from bringing outside users into an organization’s team environment and calls. Joining someone on a call when neither of you uses the same system is one issue, but for solutions that rely on private team environments for sharing and collaborating, it can become even more difficult to bring outside users in. If an account isn’t linked to the organization, its user will have trouble accessing anything.
Many communications solutions try to avert this issue by offering links to join calls via web browsers, but that’s not always enough. Good collaboration means being able to connect internal employees and external contributors while keeping team environments closed and secure. For Microsoft Teams, the solution to this problem comes with Microsoft Teams Guest Access.
What is Guest Access in Microsoft Teams?
Guest Access is one of two solutions Microsoft Teams offers for businesses to allow guests and external individuals to access their Teams environment.
This means that, in instances where companies need to connect with outside users, such as third-party collaborators, specialists, or customers, they can use Guest Access to invite those users into their meetings and collaboration sessions. This allows them limited access to the Teams experience, including several important features, without compromising security.
Guest Access is similar to External Access, another option offered by teams. External Access is a federated solution that lets users find, call, and chat with users from other organizations, but Guest Access takes it a step further by allowing users to be added directly to teams.
Organizations can use Guest Access to let anyone without an account linked to the organization join their Teams environment, including partners, consultants, vendors, suppliers, or consumers. When guests are invited to Microsoft Teams, they receive a guest account within the Azure Active Directory and get the same auditing and compliance protections as other Microsoft 365 users.
However, Guest Access does not provide unlimited access. Guests only get a small piece of the Teams experience, including @mentions, file sharing, chats, and team calls. They aren’t able to search for people in other organizations and may have limited access to specific files.
Inviting Guests to Microsoft Teams
Of course, outside users can’t get Guest Access without being invited. You can invite a guest to Microsoft Teams in a few simple steps. First, select the “Teams” tab on the left-hand sidebar of Microsoft Teams, then select “More Options” and click on “Add Member.”
From there, you can enter the email address of the guest you want to invite, add their name in the “Edit Guest Information” section, and add them to the Team.
The guest will receive an invitation email, including information about how Teams and Guest Access work. While they don’t need an account with the organization on Microsoft 365, they will still need a 365 work or school account to log in. If the user invited to a Team doesn’t have an account, the invitation includes a link allowing them to create one.
Once added to the Team, guest members are identified through a convenient “Guest” tag appearing after their username, and will be listed as a guest in the “Members” tab of the Teams instance.
