Guest chat in Teams

[Ayaz Younis]

Hi, I have a Team where I have invited a guest user via email address, the guest user can attend the video meeeting fine, but the option to chat is greyed out. It says "Chat is only availbale for channel team members". I have enabled all the options in the teams backend to allow Guests to chat. Anybody knwo how I can achieve this? Thanks.

[#2]

Is this a channel meeting in a channel of a team the guests not a member of?

[#3]

@adam deltingerit is a meeting taking place in the General Channel. THe external user is already a guest user in the Team.

[#4]

It's an issue that has been bugging me for years now, and we've reported it at least a dozen times. You'll get the best experience if you switch to the guest tenant before joining the meeting, but even then it's sometimes broken...

[#5]

Hello @Ayaz Younis ,

In my meeting I started, the invited guest can chat within the meeting. Could you please let me know, the exact steps you follow or more details of the issue. A screenshot of the guest user chat activity is given as follows:

 

Thanks,

Manu

[#6]

EDIT - not quite. Seems inconsistent. 2nd time using Edge browser doesnt work. Seems the external user needs to be logged into Teams first, then click the Join link but this time it didnt keep the external user in the lobby, just let them straight in!

EDIT 2 - ok, to stop auto entering meeting, turn off Allow dial in users to bypass lobby, in Meeting Policies in Teams Admin.

Hi all

I think I found a way of doing it, I thik its what you mentioned @Vasil Michev but do tell me.

• I made the external user a member of the Team (a guest user)
• The guest user received an email saying they have been made a member of the Team
• The guest member has to click on the link in the email and sign into to Teams using their email (Hotmail accounts log in with password, all other emails receive a one time code)
• When the eternal user receives a meeting request, they click on the Join Teams Meeting link in the email, and it opens up the Teams desktop app with them already logged in
• The chat function is available.

[#7]

There's no 100% guarantee though, I keep getting this issue at random.

[#8]

Configure guest access in the Teams admin center

Sign in to the Microsoft Teams admin center.

Select Org-wide settings > Guest access.

Set Allow guest access in Microsoft Teams to On.

Under Calling, Meeting, and Messaging, select On or Off for each capability, depending on what you want to allow for guest users.

[#9]

@Smith_JHi I did this and all the pre requisites but is still inconsistent.

With social distancing, we conduct job interviews on Teams. All we want to be able to do is invite a candidate to a Teams meeting via their email, and allow them to chat, send/receive files, etc. Thats it but seems it doesnt quite work.

[#10]

@Ayaz Younis 

TEAMS can grant access as a 'GUEST' or 'External Visitor'

Guests must be a team member, and will have greater access (depending on what you have allowed in the admin settings) - so they can view and down load files or chat with others in the TEAM or Team Meeting, when they are 'in your organization's domain'

TEAMS normally recognizes your GUESTS when they join a meeting using a link sent to them as GUESTS

But if they use a 'general link' that is available to 'non-members' - they will not have full access - and may be treated as an EXTERNAL VISITOR to the meeting.

When that happens they can 'change their organization as explained here:-

How do you switch between organizations in Teams? - Microsoft Community

We have had the same issue - and also found that EXTERNAL VISITORS could not see POWERPOINT LIVE

presentations - but they could see a 'shared desktop'

But remember TEAMS CHAT may be visible to ALL GUEST MEMBERS - so is not suitable for confidential discussions with job applicants.