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Best practice to add guest to AAD?
I could give a guest access to SPO directly from the site's permissions settings, and I could give a guest access to Teams directly from the Teams interface (at least in a channel, if not in chat). I...
- Yeah, working on Desktop now, you used to not be able to pick, not sure when it got added, but it's there now :).
Anyway, so bottom line here, you should be able to chose, having a guest is not required. Test with my tenant if you wish, but if it works, and you can't do that with someone you're trying to reach and you don't get the "search externally for" and it doesn't connect, then they must not have their end configured, but inviting them or adding them as a guest to your tenant allows them to tenant switch to chat, which isn't the same as federation.
Anyway, let us know if you have other questions or need help with more testing.
To answer you question regarding Teams. If you just need to chat with them you can use federation(external access needs enabled in admin center on both sides) and just click new chat and type in their address and do so.
However if you have added them to a Team and you want to have private chat, you can still do so just by clicking new chat and typing their name, Once a guest is invited to a Team you have the ability to then Chat with them.
Keep in mind this will house the chat in your tenant, and they will have to tenant switch in the client to your tenant to participate in that chat. The only way to prevent this is to not have them as a guest and use the chat federation, but then they can't be in a Team. It's a mess, but Microsoft says they are working on updating this, it'll just be awhile, but those are the 2 situations and how the chat works when dealing with guests.
However if you have added them to a Team and you want to have private chat, you can still do so just by clicking new chat and typing their name, Once a guest is invited to a Team you have the ability to then Chat with them.
Keep in mind this will house the chat in your tenant, and they will have to tenant switch in the client to your tenant to participate in that chat. The only way to prevent this is to not have them as a guest and use the chat federation, but then they can't be in a Team. It's a mess, but Microsoft says they are working on updating this, it'll just be awhile, but those are the 2 situations and how the chat works when dealing with guests.