Adding External but Federated users in a group chat

[abhishekaravind]

I would like to know how to 

• Add external teams users (NOTE: not guests, and users i.e. more than one) to group chats

Context

• We currently have a multi domain setup - domain A, domain B, etc.
• All users have teams enabled
• The users in these domains are already setup to talk to each other, without switching teams tenant i.e. as external users, not guest users
• When creating a group chat in domain A, I can add multiple users from domain A. However, I am only able to add one external user from another domain(any domain other than A.

Question

Is it currently possible to add multiple external users given the recent updates to the federation capabilities? Am I (and more likely my sysadmin) missing anything in the admin console that would enable this functionality?

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@abhishekaravind 

Nope, not missing anything, you cannot do group chats via federation(external) chat yet. 

However, a work around is to create a meeting with everyone, may have to have them join the meeting then click chat, but then you can have an external chat that will be available across everyone's clients. Not ideal, but it works for now until we can get External group chats in. Once you chat, you also don't have to stay connected to the A/V of the meeting and still use the chat going forward. 

No word on ETA etc. that I can share unfortunately. 

[#3]

This is frustrating.  We are currently using slack for cross-team communication but our partner is trying to move to Zoom Chat (I know).  Our CEO said "Why don't we use Teams? I know they have MS365 as well".  Great idea, I said... little did I realize it wasn't even possible :(

[#4]

@Chris Webb 

It is honestly unbelievable that you are not able to group chat in this context. The workaround is hardly that, and no ETA? Really? What is the issue that MS would not ensure group chat out of the gate?

[#5]

I'd also like to chime here and vent. We starting our SfB-OnPrem journey to Teams Only and this has come up a few times. Why can't a group chat be spun up dynamically vs creating an ad-hoc meet-now. MSFT, in the great words of Mike Dikta, "C'MON MAN!"

[#6]

This is a feature that pretty much everyone wants but it's still not there and I really don't understand why M$ is not addressing the issue. The problem has been around for quite some time (I had to use Slack for cross-company chats) and it's just very disappointing...
C'mon Microsoft, you have plenty of developers, you can do it...

[#7]

This is an absolute show-stopper for us using Teams. Even Amazon Chime (!) supports group chat with multiple federated users.

[#8]

Esto ya es posible en la actualidad

[#9]

@gtorres At that time it wasn't possible so it was a best response back then. But now you can have a group chat using external access (federation).

Adding a comparison table for some context Compare external and guest access

[#10]

thanks!