Webinar - adding an external presenter before the meeting

[stinarap]

Currently in the meeting options when selecting specific people to present the drop down list shows internal attendees only.  What are the steps required for the external presenter's name to appear in the list of presenters?

[#2]

Removal edit.

[#3]

Hello thanks for the reply. I do understand the differences. I was hoping to promote the presenter before the meeting because it's not easy to promote someone in a meeting with over 500 people. You can do it but it takes time to find their names and promote them. This can cause a delay during the meeting and doesn't look professional. To be honest, I was able to do it once before around a month ago. I added them as optional presenter and their name appeared in the drop down list for presenters. For some reason, I can't do it now. I tested it with another company and their tenant was able to do it. So weird that I can't anymore.

[#4]

@stinarap Have you had any luck resolving this problem yet?  I am struggling with it as well.  I can add external presenters to the Webinar, but they still come in as attendees.  We have asked presenters to raise their hands as soon as the enter the Webinar, which kicks them to the top of the Attendee list and makes it easier to pick out and promote them manually, but that's still a step we don't really have time for at the beginning of the meeting, so it would be a lot better if the people we designate as presenters come in that way, regardless of whether they're external to our org or not.

[#5]

@squanjox Hello, when testing this out previously something was going on and the experience wasn't consistent. Now I just tried adding some externals (open federation also called 'external access') to the required presenters field. If doing nothing after that they are indeed being Attendees when they join. But if you edit the meeting options and use the presenters dropdown adding those external users in that field beforehand they are entering as Presenters.

[#6]

I have tried to edit the meeting options as you suggest, but when I set "Who can present" to "Specific People," all that shows up next to it is "To assign a role to a participant, invite them to the meeting individually." I cannot select the external presenter I have already invited. And when I set "Who can present" to "People in my organization and Guests" the invited external presenter still comes in as an Attendee. I'm stuck.

[#7]

@squanjox 

It's definitely buggy.  I no longer can do it and have to wait until the actual meeting to start to change the permissions for the external presenters.

However I have raised a ticket to Microsoft Premier Support and this is their response:

"PG confirmed they will be rolling out this feature in lower ring first which means the fix will roll out for General Availability in 4-6 weeks, it is a Standard ETA.  "

So hopefully we will see this improved in a month or two. 

[#8]

I actually raised this issue with them after your initial post and my first reply. I didn't get a response that they were working on it but at least the right people was tagged. After reading your reply obviously they did :)

[#9]

@stinarap @squanjox Still very inconsistent after doing some testing with guest users and federated (external access) users. Have asked the PG to confirm the mentioned fix being released.

[#10]

Thank you very much Christian, appreciate your help!

[#11]

@squanjoxDo you know whether the issue of adding external guests as presenters be rolled out? The fact that you have to change them from an attendee to a presenter? 

[#12]

I would also be interested in an update regarding this issue. From my perspective the situation didn't change until now. Externals can only be assigned for Presenter role after the meeting has been started.