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Microsoft Teams - External Access

Anonymous
2023-12-11T11:08:24+00:00

Hoping someone can clarify the Teams external access.

We want to improve the security around Microsoft Teams and stop external companies/users contacting our internal staff via teams. If I turn off external access, will users still be able to schedule meetings with external users and the external users attend without any issues?

I've read through the MS info and it's a little confusing, I'm hoping someone can explain it a little better.

Thanks in advance.

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Meetings and calls | Other

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-11T11:54:28+00:00

    Hello Anson2077,

    I'm Segunfunmi, an Independent Advisor and Microsoft user like you. Thank you for posting your query in this forum.

    Certainly! In Microsoft Teams, two features control interactions with external users: External Access and Guest Access.

    External Access is a feature that allows your users to find, call, chat, and set up meetings with people outside your organisation who have Microsoft identities1. By default, this feature is enabled. If you turn off external access, your users cannot communicate with external Teams users via chat or calls.

    However, turning off external access does not prevent your users from scheduling meetings with external users. External participants can join the meetings without issues if they have a valid meeting invite. They won’t have access to your teams, sites, or other Microsoft 365 resources unless they are added as guests.

    On the other hand, Guest Access allows you to invite people from outside your organization to join a team, where they can chat, call, meet, and collaborate on files within that team1. Guests are given a Microsoft Entra B2B collaboration guest account in your directory, providing nearly the same capabilities as a native team member.

    In summary, if you turn off external access, your internal staff cannot chat or call external users. However, they can still schedule and conduct meetings with external participants. If you want external users to collaborate more closely with your teams, you can use guest access to add them to specific teams.

    Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoftteams/communicate-with-users-from-other-organizations

    I hope this clarifies the difference between external and guest access in Microsoft Teams. If you have any more questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask!

    Kind regards, Segunfunmi.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-02-20T18:07:01+00:00

    Also, if I turn off External access, and someone external joins the meeting, will they still be able to chat in the meeting?

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-02-20T18:04:28+00:00

    But, they can still use their own Teams telephony capabilities to dial their phone numbers (Team-to-PBX and vice versa). They just won't be able to use Teams for a Teams-to-Teams call. Is this correct?

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