Teams and subcontractors

[AndreaMorrison]

Hi there,

I'm new to teams and I work with several contractors (VA, Marketing consults etc) who have their own Teams accounts that are separate to the work that I do. So if I create them as Members they then have to open two team accounts, and can only have notifications on their mobile devices for one account - so if it's not mine they then miss their notifications! 

so I have added them as guests, but they have way less functionality as guests and we're finding this really constrictive as they can't add tabs etc or manage the channel in any way.

Is there a work around that I am missing? Is there anyway to add someone as a member by using their existing teams account?? It seems that teams is designed for employers and not how a lot of small businesses work which is by using contractors who also work for other people - they are still in your team, but also have their own team and are in other peoples!! But I may have missed something!

Thank you so much

Andrea 

[#2]

One can generally convert a Guest to a Member (and vice versa) using Powershell. However, this won't lead to the desired result (just tested it) and Teams will run into an "unexpected error" when trying to add such users. As such, I do not think you have any other options when it comes to Teams specifically. So either full Guest access (limited options in Teams, user signs in with their account from their "home tenant") or full Member access (full access, but user needs to sign in with an account in your organization).

[#3]

Thank you for responding @pvanberlo that's very disappointing and really restrictive for SME's who use contractors frequently, is there anyway to notify the development team at all do you know? 

[#4]

This fall hopefully shared Channels (teams connect) will be released which will help with this scenario. You will be able to share a channel with a external (or internal) team. It will then show for everyone in the own organizations context and no switching is necessary. Notifications will be native to that context too.

[#5]

Oh that's brilliant news, I'll look out for the new release, thank you for responding, I really appreciate it!