B2B External Members -access to Private or Shared Channels

Brass Contributor

We're a Multi-Tenant Org, with Cross-Tenant Sync configured from some of our agency tenants, with the agency tenants as the Cross-Tenant Sync SOURCES and our 'main' tenant as the TARGET.

 

Users provisioned into our tenant via Cross-Tenant Sync are "External Members" - and since they are now tenant Members we expected that they would be able to access both Private and Shared Channels within our 'main' tenant, but that's not the case. We can add the "External Member" accounts as Team members just as expected - but they are not able to see/access any Shared or Private Channels; the inability of these new "External Member" accounts to access Private/Shared Channels to which they've been assigned is a significant issue for us.

 

Is there an ETA for a change to this behavior?

3 Replies
Well i think you need to provide more info. For example you mention they do not see private channels were they added to them? same for shared channels etc. do they get into the tenant in the first place etc.
Hello Paul - thanks for responding - I'll try to clarify!
Yes, they do get to the tenant as expected and are able to access SPO sites and Teams they've been added to.
A bit more history: we have mutliple tenants. We've recently configured Cross-Tenant Sync [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/entra/identity/multi-tenant-organizations/cross-tenant-synchroniza...] and the provisioning/deprovisioning of 'External Member' accounts in our tenant is working just as expected - it's been a huge benefit in keeping user information from our partner tenants current, GAL visibility, and more. The synced users are not Guests, nor are they standard Members - they are External Members [very specific tenant UPN syntax].
A significant driver in our adoption of Cross-Tenant Sync was the automated provisioning/deprovisioning of these users, such that we'd be able to add them to Teams and SharePoint sites within our tenant; we ARE able to see/add the synced users to Teams as MEMBERS, just as expected. However, their experience once added to a Team is not what we expected.
Even when directly added as a Member to a Private Channel, they are unable to see/access the Private Channel; similarly, they are unable to see/access Shared Channels that are configured to 'Share this channel with everyone on the team'
What they can see/access is only the default General [Standard] channel, and any other Standard channels that are created within the Team.
As Members (albeit External ones) - we fully expected that they'd be able to participate in both Private and Shared-with-everyone-on-the-Team channels within our tenant.
Hope this is at least a bit more clear - it's a pretty specific use case.
I Would expect the same so I would recommend to create a ticket with MS.