Shared channels in Private teams - External sharing

Copper Contributor

I have enabled shared channels in Teams Admin center, B2B direct connect configurations are done in Entra Identity and sharing externally from Public team shared channel from our tenant is working ok.

 

However, I'm not able to share externally from Private team, at least not for individuals. Is this how it should work, or have i missed something? And how does the team sharing externally should work, I didn't find very clear instructions for that.

If I try to add external individual I get:

KatriTC_0-1698643886870.png

If I try to add external team I get: 

KatriTC_1-1698643964235.png

This doesn't seem right.

6 Replies

Hello @KatriTC

welcome to the Microsoft community, my name is Recep I'll be happy to help you today.

I understand that you are not able to share externally from private teams, 

Please note that the Microsoft 365 Groups guest settings must be turned on in order for people outside the organization to be added to a shared channel. If your users see this error, check the Microsoft 365 Groups settings for people outside the organization.

To set Microsoft 365 Groups settings for people outside the organization

  1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the left navigation pane, expand Settings.
  2. Click Org settings.
  3. In the list, click Microsoft 365 Groups.
  4. Ensure that the Let group owners add people outside your organization to Microsoft 365 Groups as guests and Let guest group members access group content check boxes are both checked.
  5. If you made changes, click Save changes.

    Teams channel policies determine how users can interact with shared channels. If users see this error message, check the channel policy for that user.

    To set the policy for inviting people outside the organization to shared channels

    1. In the left navigation of the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to Teams > Teams policies.
    2. Select the policy that your user is assigned to.
    3. Ensure that Invite external users to shared channels is On.
    4. If you made changes, select Apply.

      For more information about Teams channel policies, see Manage channel policies in Microsoft Teams.


      I’d like to share such kind of information about external users in teams or channels in Microsoft Teams. If the users are not associated with the same Office 365 organization tenant, then those all users are treated as guest in any teams or channel in Microsoft Teams. So, for adding external users as a guest to teams or channel, we need to also enable Guest Access related configuration from Office 365 Microsoft Teams Admin Center and some other sections or portal.

       

      Following are the check lists for Guest access for Microsoft Teams. So, kindly also try to verify below configuration settings for Microsoft Teams and try to check the result after 24 hours.

       

      ·         Turn on guest access at the Teams org-wide level

      ·         Configure Azure AD business-to-business settings

      ·         Configure Office 365 Groups

      ·         Configure sharing in Office 365

      ·         Verify sharing setting in SharePoint

       

      So, kindly try to enable this guest access related option from different sections. Here is the detailed steps article about: Microsoft Teams guest access checklist

       

      For your reference: I’d like to share one another information article about: Add a guest to a team

       

      If I have answered your question, please mark your post as Solved

      If you like my response, please give it a Like :smile:

 

Private channels can only contain a subset of Team members. To take advantage of the B2B Direct Connect settings, you need to use a Shared Channel and then invite the guest to that. Note that your guest has to be licensed for Teams and their organization will need to whitelist your organization in order that external user to participate.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/shared-channels#adding-and-removing-owners-and-memb...

@Kelly_Edinger Thank you for your response. I have Shared channel and B2B direct Connect with this target tenant. There is also Teams federation between tenants enabled. Shared channels with this other tenant are working in my test team, that is public. However same setup is not working in other team that is private. So my question is that are the Shared channels some what limited, if the team it exists, is in fact private?

Thank you for your response. I am talking more like federated tenants and B2B Direct Connect setup and using Shared channels, so I think it is a bit different than basic guest users. Or is it? More details on my response to Kelly here in this chain.
Shared channels do (should) work in private Teams. Is it possible that someone disabled guest access for that particular Team in the Teams Admin Center? If not, this sounds like you may want to open a support ticket.

@KatriTC@KatriTC

The problem you are facing looks to me like it is a SharePoint Administration sharing issue. In order to share content externally whether it is in Teams or SharePoint, there must be external allowed sharing on the SharePoint team site that Teams is enabled on. If the SharePoint/OneDrive sharing policy for the tenant does not allow external sharing, no matter what you do in Teams or Azure will over-ride this.

You may need to go into the SharePoint admin center and find the team site that is used with your team in Teams and make sure that it is set to allow External sharing.

karen_dredske_0-1698797534442.png

If external sharing is allowed here, you may also need to check the settings on your team site and make sure that it allows "New and existing guests" to ensure it allows you to share with external users. 

karen_dredske_1-1698797765613.png