ATTENDANCE LIST

Question

After a kind suggestion I decided to post the same question on the us section to reach more people,

Hello,

• I joined a Microsoft Teams meeting through a meeting link without signing into a Microsoft account.

Before joining, I manually entered my full first and last name.

• I successfully joined the meeting and could hear the presenter and view the presentation.
• Other attendees who were signed in to their accounts could not see my name or the names of other anonymous participants in the meeting's list of participants (not the attendance list)
• In a subsequent meeting with the same settings, I joined through a link while signed into my account, and my name appeared normally on that list.

My questions are:

Will an anonymous participant who manually enters their full name appear in the attendance report downloaded by the meeting organizer after the meeting?

If so, will the report display the name entered before joining, or will the participant be listed as "Anonymous", "Guest", or "Unknown"?

1. Does the fact that anonymous participants are not visible in the meeting chat's list indicate that they may also be missing from the attendance report?

Are there any circumstances in which an anonymous participant who successfully joined and attended the entire meeting would not appear in the attendance report at all?

I would appreciate clarification on the difference between the meeting chat's participant list and the attendance report, particularly regarding anonymous users.

Thank you for your assistance.

Best regardsHello,

• I joined a Microsoft Teams meeting through a meeting link without signing into a Microsoft account.

Before joining, I manually entered my full first and last name.

• I successfully joined the meeting and could hear the presenter and view the presentation.
• Other attendees who were signed in to their accounts could not see my name or the names of other anonymous participants in the meeting's list of participants (not the attendance list)
• In a subsequent meeting with the same settings, I joined through a link while signed into my account, and my name appeared normally on that list.

My questions are:

Will an anonymous participant who manually enters their full name appear in the attendance report downloaded by the meeting organizer after the meeting?

If so, will the report display the name entered before joining, or will the participant be listed as "Anonymous", "Guest", or "Unknown"?

1. Does the fact that anonymous participants are not visible in the meeting chat's list indicate that they may also be missing from the attendance report?

Are there any circumstances in which an anonymous participant who successfully joined and attended the entire meeting would not appear in the attendance report at all?

I would appreciate clarification on the difference between the meeting chat's participant list and the attendance report, particularly regarding anonymous users.

Thank you for your assistance.

Best regards

Answer 1

Hi @Izabela Szczepaniak,

The live People pane, the meeting chat member list, and the post-meeting attendance report serve different purposes and should not be treated as the same list. Based on Microsoft’s documentation:

1/Will an anonymous participant appear in the attendance report?

Microsoft describes the attendance report as showing who attended and when each attendee joined and left. Therefore, an anonymous participant who was admitted and joined a standard meeting would ordinarily be expected to appear, provided attendance reporting was enabled and none of the documented limitations applied.

However, Microsoft’s public documentation does not explicitly guarantee how every anonymous participant will be represented in every report.

2/Which name will appear?

Microsoft states that Unverified appears next to the name of an anonymous participant who joins without identity verification. If the participant verifies using an email one-time passcode, Email Verified appears next to the name.

These labels describe how the participant is identified during the meeting experience. Microsoft’s documentation does not specify whether the downloaded CSV will show only the name entered on the pre-join screen, add an unverified designation, or use another generic value in every scenario. Therefore, the organizer would need to check the final post-meeting report to confirm the recorded value.

In any case, a manually entered name should not be treated as verified proof of identity.

3/Does absence from a participant or chat-related list mean absence from the attendance report?

Not necessarily. The meeting chat member list is not the same as the attendance report. The organizer or co-organizer can access the post-meeting report through the Attendance tab or the meeting chat, normally about five minutes after the meeting ends.

Microsoft also notes that anonymous participants do not have access to meeting chat before and after the meeting. Therefore, absence from a chat-related member list does not by itself prove that the participant will be missing from the attendance report.

If you mean the live People pane rather than the meeting chat member list, Microsoft’s documentation does not state that absence from that view automatically means absence from the final attendance report.

4/When might the attendee or report be missing?

• Microsoft documents the following relevant situations:
• Attendance reporting was disabled by the organizer or the applicable meeting policy.
• The participant remained in the lobby and was never admitted.
• The participant joined as a view-only attendee, who is not currently included in the attendance report.
• It was an instant channel meeting, for which attendance reports are not supported.

In a meeting with more than 120 participants, the report downloaded during the meeting may include only some attendees. Microsoft states that the post-meeting report will contain all attendees.

Therefore, in the situation you described, an anonymous participant who was admitted and remained in a standard scheduled meeting would ordinarily be expected to generate an attendance record. However, Microsoft does not publicly document the exact name or label that will appear in every version of the downloaded report. For reference:

• Manage meeting attendance reports in Microsoft Teams
• Manage anonymous participant access to Teams meetings and events (IT admins)
• Manage the attendance and engagement report for meetings and events in Microsoft Teams

I hope this clarifies the distinction between the meeting participant views and the organizer’s attendance report. Thank you so much for taking the time.