How to collaborate with external users in Microsoft Teams?
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In Microsoft Teams, collaboration with external users can be achieved by adding them into the required teams. However, we can also perform external collaboration through shared channels, Teams meetings, file sharing, screen sharing, etc.
This will be helpful for short term collaboration like quick discussion with external clients and avoids the need to create new teams solely for external collaboration.
Shared channels in Microsoft Teams offer a secure and organized method for collaborating with external users without granting them access to all channels within the team.
If you are a team owner, you can create shared channels and add external users in Microsoft Teams. However, you must enable B2B direct connect and configure inbound and outbound access settings in Azure AD to enable collaboration only with the desired external organization via shared channels.
After creating the required shared channels, you can share them with external users using the options below and eliminate the need to switch between organization and guest Teams accounts.
- With people
- With a team
- With a team you own
If your users try to share channels with external organizations not configured with B2B, direct them to your request page for shared channel collaboration. This allows discussion regarding collaboration requirements and enables B2B direct connect if necessary.
- Navigate to Teams settings page in Teams admin center.
- Scroll down and enable "Provide a link to my support request page" option to provide any custom support page link to receive requests from your users.
Teams meeting would be an great option to collaborate with external users for useful cases like client meeting, screen sharing, remote access, etc.
You can follow the steps below to invite external users to Teams meeting.
- Click the calendar icon from the left navigate pane in Microsoft Teams.
- Click on '+New meeting'. Add title and enter email address of required external users in attendees list.
- Fill the other required details and click 'Send' icon to invite the desired external users to the meeting.
Note: You can allow or block external users from joining a meeting by configuring 'Participants' settings under Meetings»Meeting settings page in Teams admin center.
Teams users and external users can share and access files by sharing them via Teams channels or chat, if external file sharing is enabled in your organization. However, individuals with external access cannot share local files in one-to-one chats, instead they can share files as links in Microsoft Teams.