Teams for Hosting Meetings Only

[JakeParks]

We have a requirement from the business to use Teams for meetings only and only for a handful of users. We have M365 E3 for the whole company as we use Office Pro Plus. We use Gmail for email and Slack for chat. We also use Jabber/Webex/Zoom for the vast majority of video calls. However we've been asked to set up a small number of users to be able to host meetings for clients who insist on using Teams. In theory the client could host but it's not so good when we're trying to win business to ask the client to do this. We don't want to enable chat, apps or any other Teams functionlity apart from the ability to schedule and host Teams meetings for video calls and presentations. How can we best achieve this?

[#2]

@JakeParks Teams is controlled using policies from the Teams Admin center, so you have extensive control of all the features. 

1. Use a messaging policy to turn off chat

2. Use an app permission policy to disable all other apps

3. Use an app setup policy to remove the icons from the left hand side

4. Set Azure AD to prevent creting new Teams (Manage who can create Microsoft 365 Groups | Microsoft Learn)

Be sure to then install the Google Workplace tool that will allow staff to schedule meetings Install the Teams meeting add-on for Google Workspace - Microsoft Support

The end result should be a pretty empty Teams client if opened directly, but it will still join meetings if a link is clicked from a calendar invite.

I would also strongly recommend that you ensure there is nothing that will be blocking Teams connecting to the internet over UDP 3478-3481 to ensure best media quality in meetings, along with Teams certified headsets etc.

[#3]

Thanks @StevenC365 . Trying to set this up but these settings still take so darn long to update. It's hard to know if/when you've got things right. I'm also wondering if resource accounts as Team rooms might be the way to go for scheduling the meetings?

[#4]

@StevenC365 another thing, if I may ask. In order to see the calendar in Teams and be able to schedule meetings we have to assign an EXO license feature, however that also appears to give them a mailbox which they can access via Outlook online. Is there a way to disable the mailbox from being accessed by the users?

[#5]

@JakeParks Yeah, give it all several days to fully migrate to clients. If you log in and out it will speed the process.

[#6]

@JakeParks Calendar is part of a mailbox, which is why I wouldn't suggest you give them that. Instead the Google Workplace tool I linked before will allow them to create meeting links in their Google Calendar.

They won't show in Teams, but when you click the link from Google Teams will open and join the meeting.