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Lawrence_Patterson's avatar
Lawrence_Patterson
Copper Contributor
Sep 07, 2023

Can we restrict access to Manager's Outlook delegate so to not have access to a Teams Meeting chat?

Hello, we happened to discover this week that a Manager's Outlook delegate (that creates, manages many of the manager's Teams meetings) has the rights, and in fact is notified, whenever the meeting's chat feature is used and content is entered. The Manager's delegate is not inviting themselves to the meeting, though they show up as the Meeting Organizer (when viewed by other meeting participants, but not by the Manager themselves).

 

In one way, I'm not surprised to become aware of this, though from another perspective, I agree with my Manager's comment that this isn't right. Note, we're aware that if the Manager uses Teams chat outside of the meeting (I.e. chatting directly with a participant, similar to using Teams chat without a meeting), then the delegate cannot see the chat and such that's an alternative.

 

We're running Microsoft 365, Teams latest version 1 or 2, with a hybrid setup to 2016 Exchange server.
-not that I believe this is a contributing factor

  • Well, meetings are a "shared" resource, every participant can see the chat, and in this case the delegate is the organizer, so I don't see anything wrong with it. The manager can always open a new private (or new group chat) if they are too worried about said notifications.
    • Lawrence_Patterson's avatar
      Lawrence_Patterson
      Copper Contributor

      VasilMichev Oh you're preaching to the choir, that said, my boss is reviewing this issue from a different ideology :).  My boss, amongst other non-technical executives or the many who have limited understanding on how authorization is managed within Exchange / Outlook, are  and I'm betting they aren't the only one will be surprised to know that their delegate has access to Team meeting chats between invited individuals, when they are not invited to the meeting.  And Exchange / Outlook are different entities from Teams, again from the perspective of my boss, and their impression is that I provided the delegate to manage my Outlook calendars, not be able to snoop on my Teams meetings that they are not invited to.

       

      All that said, I'm looking for Microsoft to explain the permissions that an Outlook delegate / meeting organizer (not invitee) to a Teams meeting has.  So far my research hasn't found any reference, other than contact Microsoft support, and I feel that Microsoft could be transparent about this issue, as there maybe other permissions that we are not aware of, due to the Teams / Outlook integration.

      • Lawrence_Patterson's avatar
        Lawrence_Patterson
        Copper Contributor
        Microsoft's support word is in, and it's "there no way to block the access to the Teams Chat when the user has a delegate access unless you remove the delegate access.".

        Guess that's all folks.

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