Cant't access external Teams channel

[Ajedesign]

Hi,

I can't find a straightforward answer for my question related to external Teams access.

I'm a Project Manager engaged with multiple clients simultaneously. My organization has Teams and we frequently communicate internally via chat/video calls. 
My clients also use Teams and we would like to set up mutual channels that everyone can access without switching profiles. This seems impossible.
I want to add the external Teams channels to my Teams Teams view, where I have all my internal channels as well. I want to use one account to access everything.

Now I have to click on my profile pic to access the drop-down menu and select which guest account I want to access in order to access that specific Teams channel. I then need to authenticate myself using some passkey via phone or email and only then can I access the channel. But now I don’t have access to my internal channel/contacts, nor any other external content either. I need to switch profile again. And around we go…

Obviously, this is wrong, and I am doing something really stupid here, and I need your guidance please.

Best Regards,

Andreas

[#2]

Hello, you're gonna love Teams Connect going GA in November because it will do exactly what you're asking for https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=70766

It's not optimal using multiple accounts right now, but that could be changed in the near future as they've already added the ability to add an additional account (being personal). Until then your best way of working is probably using the desktop app and a browser at the same time with different tenants as a workaround.

[#3]

Thanks for a quick reply. :) Yes, sounds good but I must say, it makes you wonder why Microsoft didn't build a proper collaboration tool from day one? Teams is truly not a business tool. It’s overly complicated with a GUI that is far from ideal. Perhaps on a sketch board somewhere many years ago the theory behind Teams was formed, with great potential and good value adding features, but definitely not how it was implemented.

The whole thinking around “multiple accounts” is so wrong. There should be only one account, and this is the one you add as either an internal account to your internal teams, or you add the account as a guest user to external teams. Regardless, when you open up Teams and browse your channels you should have a complete overview of everything.

Oh, and please bring back the standard Skype way of chatting. There was nothing wrong with it. In fact it’s really superior to what we have now in Teams. If it aint broken, don’t fix it.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Can't say as I don't work for Microsoft :) Here you can read more about Teams Connect https://practical365.com/microsoft-teams-connect-shared-channels/

[#5]

Great, thanks again!

[#6]

Microsoft Building Teams around Microsoft 365 Groups was the biggest single design flaw they decided to go with since it tied them to that as the backend. Slowly pieces of it are starting to be removed from that dependency but it's both good from a compliance perspective and enterprise standpoint but makes it difficult from a cross org / public interaction point of view.

Honestly Teams IMO was a replacement for Skype for Business group chats, they were called something and the name is alluding me, but it formed into much more.

Anyway, Microsoft is seeing these pain points and making the changes it's just taking time due to the deep integration to 365 Groups. We'll get there before long. But as said, Shared Channels with Teams Connect is exactly what your looking for, and I see long term the need to change org's going away inlieu of everything showing up for a single account, which makes the most sense when you start thinking about presence across orgs, notifications, calls etc.