"Public Live Presentations" - includes Guest users?

Question

Following MC211518 - I have created a policy in the Office Customisation portal.

This policy blocks public Live Presentations- configuration is "disabled" for all users.

From what i understand, this should block public presentations but i believe it should allow guest users.

the policy claims that "it will only be available to users within your organization" - and when an anonymous user tries to access a presentation the error (AADSTS50020) claims that the "account needs to be added as an external user in the tenant first".

However when a guest user tries to access a live presentation, they get the same error.

Guests are treated as anonymous users when this policy is applied.

Should they be? It is not really clear, but from what I see it seems that guests should be allowed to view these.

Thanks,

Alex

Answer 1

Hi Jazlyn, thanks for the reply.

I will start by saying: I understand exactly what you are telling me. I don't need any support really, but rather I want to discuss an issue with this service. Am I in the wrong place, is there any way you can get this looked into?

Yes, my example was the same as your 2nd screenshot- the guest was using a personal account.

And yes, as you agree above: guests are in fact members of my tenant.

Nothing has changed since I originally raised this ticket, I still have the same issues:

1. Should disabling "public" Live presentations really disable it for guests?

• when comparing to other services (Teams Live Events), guests are included under "org wide" but excluded from Public. "public" means different things in different places and needs to be clarified

2. The error message implies that the content SHOULD be available to guests...........

you say that you think the error message is just incorrect.......

I don't think it's really acceptable for the service to be giving incorrect error messages.

Especially if the error message is suggesting a solution which goes completely against the way the service works. If guests can ever access the content, do not suggest adding the user as a guest! that makes the problem more confusing!

How can we move this forward?

I have already raised it with premier support. No help there. They told me to raise it here.

Can you help get this escalated? So that we can get some clarification on "org" vs "public" across the O365 suite? And so that we can address the question of whether the error message is incorrect?

Thanks,

Alex

Answer 2

Hi Alex,

Generally, there are two methods for us to add a guest user in Azure AD. One is creating a guest user, and other is inviting a guest user. And guest users created by these two methods are different.

The guest users created via creating have the same domain address with the internal users of the organization, and it means that the guest users created via this way can access the presentation after entering their account.

However, guest users created via inviting still have their own address which is not in the same Microsoft 365 organization (work or school) as the presenter is in, and it means that the guest users are not part of the company, so they can't access the presentation .

Best regards,

Jazlyn

Answer 3

Hi Alex,

Thank you for the reply.

About the error message, I tested again on my side, when I disable Public Live Presentations and chose "Only people in your organization", here is the result:

When the guest user is an Work or School account, he will get the below error message:

When the guest user is a personal account, he will get the below error message which has the similar part with yours:

And about "Only people in your organization" option, this is the default option for presenters signed in with their work or school account. It limits access to people signed in with accounts in the same Microsoft 365 organization (work or school) the presenter is in. For more details, you can refer to this article: Live Presentations.

Although guest users are added to your tenant, they still do not have the same organization domain as internal users. So they can't access it.

So I think the error message you received may have nothing to do with the real cause.

Best regards,

Jazlyn

Answer 4

Thanks Jazlyn.

When you chose "Only people in your organization" and the guest user did not get access, i suppose you saw error message AADSTS50020 with the text that the user "account needs to be added as an external user in the tenant first".

Correct?

If so, I assume that this feature SHOULD be available to guests, but is not.... Or is the error message wrong................

In other applications, guests ARE considered members of your organisation.

For example, when you host a Live Event guests are welcome to join "org wide" events.

to put it simply, guest users and public/ anonymous users are very different, and in other O365 apps, guests fall under your org.

Also.... the error message suggests that this should work for guests.............

Answer 5

Hi Alex,

Based on your description, after setting up "Public Live Presentations" policy, it also block public presentations for guest users.

I also tested it on my side, and here are the results:

If I choose "Only people in your organization" under Present Live, then copy-paste the link to guest users, after entering their account and they can't access the presentaion. However, users in your organization can access it.

If I choose "Anyone" under Present Live, users can access the presentation without entering the account.

A guest is someone who is not an employee, student, or member of your organization. They don't have a work or school account within your organization. Although they have added into guest list of your organization, they are different with the users who are within your orgainzation.

Best regards,

Jazlyn