External users in Microsoft Teams

This is similar to adding a university user.

You manually add members to a Team using the Manage Team menu. You can do this on all devices.

• Click the Teams menu (ellipsis …) (1)
• Select Manage Team 

• Select the members tab (3)
• Click Add Members (4)

• For external colleagues you can add them here by entering their full email address.
• Click Add to add the member(s) to your Team. Note: external users can only be added as a 'Guest'

Mobile users: You can perform the same function in the mobile app:

• Tap the Teams in the main menu at the bottom of your screen
• Tap the 3 dots icon next to the team you wish to edit
• Tap Manage Members
• Tap the person icon (next to Team Members title)
• You can now add users by email address

This page covers how an External user joins a Team as a guest

This method is useful when you just need an external contact to attend a single video call. For example:

• The Call is not being held in an existing Team – (meetings can alternatively be held in the Chat area)
• Call is within a Team, but the external user only needs to attend single meeting

There are different recommendations for setting up the meeting, depending

The Teams Calendar connects with your Exchange calendar so you should see the same appointments in this Calendar area as you see in Outlook.

1. Open Teams and select the Calendar button 
2. Select New meeting button

   

3. Add meeting title, date and time and meeting details.
4. Enter the names of attendees. If they are external, enter their full email address.
5. You can use the Scheduling Assistant to find the most suitable date and time for your internal invitees. 
   
6. Leave the channel blank. (This is for meetings within a Team)
7. In your invitation, recommend that external contacts test the meeting link before the meeting. Let them know they do not need a Teams account, but if they are using a mobile device they will need to download the Teams app before they join the meeting. If they reach the lobby, this indicates success!
8. Send the invitation
9. Before the meeting, you can use meeting Tracking to check responses to your invitation. Open the meeting Details from the Teams Calendar – Tracking info appears on the right.

The meeting will appear in your Calendars in Outlook and in Teams. At the meeting start time, click Join. Any externals will be asked to wait in the lobby until someone already in the meeting lets them in. 

As the meeting is not inside a Team, there are no restrictions on who can access the meeting Chat. All participants, including externals, can see and post in the meeting Chat. External participants will not be able to access the meeting recordings.

Meeting options

Once you have scheduled a meeting you can set the meeting options. You don’t need to do this if you are happy with the default options (shown below). Note that it takes some time for the new meeting to be set-up in the calendar – it will initially appear greyed-out. When it is ready, right-click and select Edit. The Meeting options screen opens in a web page – you might have to hunt for it. If you are the meeting organizer, you can also edit meeting options from the calendar invite.

Meeting options – opens in a web page

The lobby

You can set options to decide who waits in the Lobby using meeting options (above), but note that invited guests will not be able to join the meeting until a team member admits them, even if you selection the option to allow everyone to bypass the lobby.

Important: The person who schedules a meeting becomes the meeting organiser. This means they are the only person who can download the meeting participants list, or organise Breakout rooms. If these features are needed and you are not attending the meeting yourself, do not use the Meeting scheduler. You may be able to use the New Teams Meeting button in Outlook, if it is available to you. (See Option 3.)

This option is useful for one-off calls with external partners. The external contact does not need a Microsoft account or Microsoft Teams installed to be able to join the call, but they will not have access to view any recordings of the meeting. Please note you cannot use Outlook to schedule meetings within a Team – any meetings scheduled are set up in the Chat area .

If your version of Outlook calendar has a New Teams Meeting button, use this to schedule the meeting, and invite everyone that needs to attend. For external contacts, you must use their full email address . This will send a meeting invitation, with a link to join the Microsoft Teams call.

The Meet button within a Team

1. Go to the Team
2. From the drop-down Meet button , select Schedule a meeting
   
3. Add meeting title, date and time and meeting details.
4. If desired, you can choose a different channel to hold the meeting in. You can't schedule meetings in a Private channel.
5. You don’t need to add the names of people in your Team. They will automatically receive an invitation.
6. You can use the Scheduling Assistant to find the most suitable date and time for your invitees. 
   
7. Add your external contacts to the list of required attendees, using their full email addresses.
8. Use the meeting details area to provide guidance for your external contacts. Recommend that they test the meeting link before the meeting; let them know that they do not need a Teams account, but if they are using a mobile device they will need to download the Teams app before they join the meeting. If they reach the lobby, this indicates success!
9. Ask your recipients to just use the response options to let you know whether they are coming or not. If they want to give you any other information, they should send you a separate email – see info on bug below.
10. Send the invitation
11. Before the meeting, you can use meeting Tracking to check responses to your invitation. Open the meeting Details – Tracking info appears on the right.
12. The meeting will appear in your Calendars in Outlook and Teams. At, or shortly before, the meeting start time, click the Join button. Any externals will be asked to wait in the lobby until someone already in the meeting lets them in.

Important: The person who schedules a meeting becomes the meeting organiser. This means they are the only person who can download the meeting participants list, or organise Breakout rooms. If these features are needed and you are not attending the meeting yourself, do not use the Meeting scheduler. Use another method, or ask someone who is attending the meeting to schedule it.

Scheduler bug:

Please note that if you schedule a meeting within a Team, you will see the responses (Accept, tentative, Decline) in the meeting details, but  messages typed in reply to your invitation are not delivered to you. This is a known bug. When you are writing your invitation, ask your recipients to just use the response options to let you know whether they are coming or not. If they want to give you any other information, they should send you a separate email.

This bug only affects meetings scheduled in a Team. If you are scheduling a meeting that is not within a Team, messages sent in reply will be delivered to your Inbox.

To  invite a contact into a meeting in your Team, you can:

1. Start the Call in your Team channel
2. Select the More Actions menu – this is shown as three dots (ellipses) in the main Meeting toolbar
   
3. Select Meeting details
   
4. Select the Copy Join Info button
   
   This will generate a formatted link which you can insert into an email message or a Calendar invite. If you need an unformatted link, you can right click on the Join Microsoft Teams Meeting link and copy this link instead.
5. Create an email message for your external partner(s) and paste the Join link you have copied into this email. 

The external user will simply click on the link which will cause one of the following to happen:

• If they are using a mobile device they will be asked to install the Teams app
• If they are using a computer with Teams installed, they may see a pop-up message asking them if they want to open MS Teams. If they don't have Teams installed, or if they don't want to use their normal Teams account, they should select the option to 'Continue on this browser'

They will be asked to enter their name, then they can join the video call (no need to sign up for Teams). Remember – this provides limited access – see table below. They will not be able to join future video calls, only the one you have invited them to. Each meeting invitation is unique. 

Your external contacts will have to wait in the lobby until someone in the meeting admits them.

This method does not allow you to test links in advance, as you have to start the call to generate the meeting link. You will need to make the external partner aware of the fact that they will need to check their email at the time of the call to be able to join the call. We would recommend testing this in advance with the external partner.

One way of testing in advance is to start a meeting at least the day before the meeting and generate the link (up to Step 4). Then create a Calendar invitation to invite your external contacts to this meeting. In your invitation ask them to test the meeting link. Let them know that if they reach the Lobby, they have been successful. The meeting will also appear in your Calendar.  You must remember to use the same link to start the meeting on the day. If you start a different meeting in Teams, your external contacts will be waiting in a lobby for the wrong meeting!