External Users as Co-Organizers

[JBeales]

Is there any word on allowing External Participants/Users to be Co-Organizers on a teams session?

We’re a B2B company that runs a high volume of corporate trainings for clients, and the inability for external users to have full co-organizer access in a clients sessions is the number one hurdle we have for adoption of teams, and a reason why we consistently advise against moving trainings to the platform. 

Many structured trainings and meetings are used to having third parties produce, support, or facilitate, and these functions require an “organizer” level permission to invite, troubleshoot, manage breakouts and sharing, pull reporting, etc. 

The current solution of requiring tenant logins isn’t practical, as most large organizations which comply with IT security protocols require significant internal screening and administration when issuing an internal credential. 

Host Keys, external hosts, and passed permissions exist on every other video conferencing and meeting platform (Zoom, WebEx, Adobe Connect, UMeet, Kaltura, etc). Teams seems unique in lacking this basic feature. 

Is there any insight on when we can expect this basic functionality? Is it on the roadmap? If not, is there a way we can get it there?

[#2]

@JBeales I have exactly the same problem.
We need to handle breakout rooms while training and facilitating as guest users on someone else's tenant. They don't want their users made guest users on our tenant for security reasons.
Teams does not seem to accommodate this. The only alternative is for the client to purchase an additional license which is superfluous, because we are already licensed. So duplicate licenses, just to have breakout rooms.
Hard to believe that Microsoft hasn't encountered this problem before.

[#3]

@Morne_Mail Honestly, I feel like it's the entire Training, Learning, Development and Coaching space that's encountering this problem.

Microsoft Teams has come to supplant a lot of the virtual platform options because of cost for these corporate clients, but Microsoft's failure to address the functionality of external parties in Teams sessions has meant that it's creating a real issue for the industry as a whole. It's also the reason why we actively encourage our clients to consider other platforms for L&D activities. 

I wish someone from Microsoft would acknowledge and respond to these concerns. For a platform which is meant to provide collaboration and correspondence for working teams, having the functionality effectively end Outside of the Organizaiton is a critical shortfall.

[#4]

Totally agreed!! We are managing employees training. Most of our professors are external to the tenant, so they cannot manage breakeout rooms. As a training tool, it's so far away from other options in the market.

[#5]

This is an old thread, but there is now a dialog going with a member of the Teams org at Microsoft about this issue. If this is something that is an issue for you or your business, please participate here:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-small-business/inability-for-external-present...