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About this lesson

Learn how to use Teams even if you don't have an account.

Quick reference

Use Teams as a Guest

Invite external participants to Teams and meetings as guests. 

When to use

Guest access is used whenever we invite external people not on our network to a team or meeting. 

Instructions

Teams is not only for internal teams. We can use it to chat with external clients and customers not on our network. These people are classed as "guests" in teams. 

To invite guests to teams, we need to ensure that we have guest access enabled in the Teams admin center. Only administrators can enable this option. 

Enable Guest Access

  • Log into the Microsoft 365 online portal. 
  • Click the App Launcher.
  • Select Admin. 
  • Expand the navigation menu (3 lines in the corner). 
  • Select Guest Users. 
  • Click Manage Teams Settings.
  • Check the box next to Allow guest access in Teams. 

Joining a Team as a Guest

To join a team as a guest, we need to be invited by the team owner. The Teams owner generates an email with a direct link to the teams and the recipient simply clicks on the link. 

If the recipient does not have Teams on their device, they will be prompted to download it or work in the browser version. 

Joining a Meeting as a Guest

Guests joining a Teams meeting get held in the lobby until the meeting organizer admits them to the meeting. Guests will appear in the Participants panel as 'Meeting Guest'. 

Hints & tips

  • If you are unable to change the settings for guest access, contact your Teams administrator or IT team. 
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  • 00:03 Teams is at its most efficient when you're working with your colleagues on the same
  • 00:08 network.
  • 00:09 When everybody's using the same domain it makes it very easy to
  • 00:13 invite others to meetings, chat, and share files.
  • 00:17 However, Teams is not only for internal teams, we can use it to chat to clients,
  • 00:24 customers, and external people not on our network.
  • 00:28 And in Teams, these people are classed as guests.
  • 00:32 Now, guests do have less access than members but
  • 00:35 there is still a lot that they can do.
  • 00:38 And you might also come across a scenario where you want to maybe invite someone to
  • 00:43 a meeting, who doesn't have Teams on their PC.
  • 00:45 All of these issues are easily solved by turning on guest access in the Teams
  • 00:50 admin center.
  • 00:51 Now obviously, in order to have access to the admin center for
  • 00:55 Teams, you need to be an admin yourself.
  • 00:58 So if you don't have access to do this, and I'll show you in a moment how you
  • 01:02 can check, you might want to contact your Teams administrator.
  • 01:06 And of course this only applies if you are trying to invite,
  • 01:09 share, and collaborate with guests or external people.
  • 01:12 Now I'm currently logged into my Microsoft 365 account so
  • 01:16 I'm basically online at the moment.
  • 01:18 Now in order to turn on guest access, I need to go to the Teams admin center.
  • 01:23 So if we click on the app launcher in the top left-hand corner,
  • 01:27 this is where we can see all the different applications that we have access to under
  • 01:32 our Microsoft 365 subscription.
  • 01:34 And again, this might look different for you,
  • 01:37 depending on what type of subscription you have.
  • 01:40 Now I have a business subscription and I've set up my own domain so
  • 01:45 I am an admin for Teams.
  • 01:47 And you can see here, I have access to the Admin area of Microsoft 365.
  • 01:52 So if you are looking at this list and you don't see Admin,
  • 01:55 then you're going to need to contact your administrator
  • 01:58 if you're having problems inviting guests to meetings.
  • 02:01 If you can see this, let's click on it and take a look at what we have.
  • 02:05 Now the first thing I'm going to do here is click on this little,
  • 02:08 I call this the burger, it reminds me of a hamburger, I don't know why.
  • 02:12 It's actually the navigation menu.
  • 02:13 Let's just open that.
  • 02:15 And we should find we have a section under here for guest users.
  • 02:19 Now notice from here I can add a guest user.
  • 02:22 So if we click on Manage Teams settings, what you'll notice is that
  • 02:27 towards the bottom, we can allow guest access in Teams.
  • 02:31 So if you want to collaborate with people outside your organization, then you're
  • 02:35 going to need to ensure if you're an admin that you're allowing guest access.
  • 02:40 Now what about if you're a guest, but you don't have a Teams account,
  • 02:44 how do you even join a meeting?
  • 02:46 Well, you simply need to be invited.
  • 02:49 The host should have sent you a link to the meeting in an email, so
  • 02:53 if you simply click on the link, you have three choices.
  • 02:57 You can download Teams, you can continue in this browser,
  • 03:02 or you can open Teams for work or school.
  • 03:06 So if a user doesn't have a Teams account they can simply continue in the browser or
  • 03:12 choose to download Teams.
  • 03:14 So if I say continue on this browser, it's then going to jump me
  • 03:18 directly into that Teams meeting even if I don't have a Teams account.
  • 03:24 At this point, I simply need to set up my video settings,
  • 03:28 I can choose if I want to turn my camera off or on.
  • 03:32 I can choose a background.
  • 03:33 I can turn my microphone off or on and even set up my microphone if I want to.
  • 03:40 Once I'm happy with my settings I can click on Join now and
  • 03:43 I'm now in the meeting.
  • 03:45 Now don't worry if this is all a bit quick at the moment,
  • 03:48 we are going to go through this very slowly.
  • 03:51 I just simply want to show you here how guests who don't have access to
  • 03:55 Teams can access a meeting.
  • 03:57 The final thing to note about entering a meeting as a guest is that you will be
  • 04:02 held in the meeting lobby until the meeting organizer decides to let you in.
  • 04:07 And other participants in that meeting won't see your name,
  • 04:11 they'll see you labeled as meeting guest,

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