Collaborate with external participants in a shared channel (IT Admins)

If you want to enable your users to collaborate with people in other Microsoft 365 organizations in shared channels, you need to configure B2B direct connect for each organization that you want to collaborate with. (Alternatively, you can Enable shared channels with all external organizations.)

When you enable shared channels in Teams with another organization:

• Team owners in your organization can invite people from other organizations to participate in shared channels.
• Your organization's custom (line of business) apps are available in shared channels and external participants can access them.
• Your organization's apps list is available in shared channels and external participants can access them.

Note that the organizations that you want to connect to must also follow the steps in this article to enable external shared channels for their organization.

Prerequisites

Collaborating with external participants in a shared channel requires that guest access be turned on for SharePoint and Microsoft 365 Groups. These settings are enabled by default, but if your organization has made changes to them, confirm the following settings before configuring shared channels:

• Microsoft 365 Groups sharing settings must both be enabled.
• SharePoint organization level and site level sharing settings must allow guests. The domains you're sharing with must not be blocked.

Note

Shared channels between Commercial and GCC clouds are not supported.

Video demonstration

This video shows the configuration steps described in this document.

Enable shared channels in Teams

Shared channels is enabled by default in Teams. Follow this procedure to confirm the settings.

To configure shared channels

1. In the Teams admin center, expand Teams, and then select Teams policies.
2. Select the policy for which you want to enable shared channels, and then select Edit.
3. Select the options you want to enable:
   • To allow team owners to create shared channels, turn Create shared channels on.
   • To allow team owners to share shared channels with people outside the organization, turn Invite external users to shared channels on.
   • To allow users to be invited to shared channels in other organizations, turn Join external shared channels on.
4. Select Apply.

In order for external channel participants to participate in meetings, external access must be enabled. This is also required to be able to see external participants' presence in the channel.

Enable external access

To enable external access

1. In the Teams admin center, expand Users, and then select External access.
2. Under Teams and Skype for Business users in external organizations, ensure that the organizations that you want to collaborate with are not blocked.

Specify a link to your internal process for requesting new external organizations

For users to invite people from outside your organization to a shared channel, both organizations must set up an organizational relationship in Microsoft Entra B2B direct connect. (This is covered in the following sections.)

You can specify an internal link for users who try to share a channel with people in an organization where a two-way Microsoft Entra B2B direct connect relationship has not been set up. This link appears when they try to share the channel. Use this link to direct your users to your internal support page or request form for setting up shared channels with other organizations.

To specify an internal help link for shared channel users

1. In the Teams admin center, expand Teams, and then select Teams settings.
2. Under Shared channels, turn Provide a link to my support request page on.
3. Type the URL to your support page in the Support request page link box.
4. Select Save.

Configure cross-tenant access settings in Microsoft Entra External ID

Microsoft Entra External ID B2B direct connect is disabled by default. To enable collaboration in shared channels with people from other organizations, you must:

1. Add an organization.
2. Configure inbound settings for the organization to allow users from the organization to be invited to your shared channels.
3. Configure outbound settings for the organization to allow your users to be invited to the other organization's shared channels.

As part of this configuration, we enable the Office 365 application, which includes Teams and Teams-integrated services such as SharePoint.

Note

Changes to cross-tenant access settings may take up to six hours to take effect.

Add an organization

Add each organization with which you want to participate in shared channels.

To add an organization

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center using a Security administrator account.
2. Select External Identities, and then select Cross-tenant access settings.
3. Select Organizational settings.
4. Select Add organization.
5. On the Add organization pane, type the full domain name (or tenant ID) for the organization and press Enter.
6. Select Add.
7. The organization appears in the organizations list. At this point, all access settings for this organization are inherited from your default settings.

Configure inbound settings

Follow this procedure for each organization where you want to invite external participants.

To configure inbound settings for an organization

1. In the Microsoft Entra admin center, select External Identities, and then select Cross-tenant access settings.
2. Select the inbound access link for the organization that you want to modify.
3. On the B2B direct connect tab, choose Customize settings.
4. On the External users and groups tab, choose Allow access and All external users and groups. (You can choose Select external users and groups if you want to limit access to specific users and groups, such as those who have signed a non-disclosure agreement.)
5. On the Applications tab, choose Allow access and Select applications.
6. Select Add Microsoft applications.
7. Select the Office 365 application, and then choose Select.
8. Select Save and close the Inbound access settings blade.

Configure outbound settings

Follow this procedure for each organization where you want your users to be able to participate in external shared channels.

To configure outbound settings for an organization

1. In the Microsoft Entra admin center, select External Identities, and then select Cross-tenant access settings.
2. Select the outbound access link for the organization that you want to modify.
3. On the B2B direct connect tab, choose Customize settings.
4. On the External users and groups tab, choose Allow access and set an Applies to of all users.
5. On the External applications tab, choose Allow access and Select external applications.
6. Select Add Microsoft applications.
7. Select the Office 365 application, and then choose Select.
8. Select Save, choose Yes to confirm, and close the Outbound access settings blade.

Related topics

B2B direct connect overview

Configure cross-tenant access settings for B2B direct connect

Limit who can be invited by an organization

Shared channels limits