Add External Users with Any Email Address as a Guest in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams works on the concept of having a “team” of people focused on a common goal. Previously, the team could be members of your company (all with Office 365 accounts) or external guests, however, the guests had to also have an Office 365 account, limiting you to collaborating with people outside your company only if their company also had Office 365.

Now, and after much demand and some delay, you will be able to add a guest even if they don’t have an Office 365 account. As long as they have an email address you can add them. So, for example, If I’ve got a team for an event we are putting on, but my external marketing contractor uses google, I can add their gmail account as a guest.

Simply go to “add members”

Add the person email address

They will receive a nice invite email

They will then click the link. I’m blurring the email as I actually used a different googlemail address, but you get the idea.

Now Sarah can sign in anytime at teams.microsoft.com or use the desktop or mobile apps

Sarah can only see the Channels, Chat and Files in the Team or Team(s) she is invited too.

Teams with guests will be identified with text and icons throughout the Teams UI to give all team members a clear indication that there are guests in that team.

• Guest access is included with all Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 Enterprise, and Office 365 Education subscriptions.
• Guest access is a tenant-level setting in Microsoft Teams and is turned off by default. To take advantage of the new functionality, admins need to enable guest access in the Office 365 admin center
• Guests do not require a Microsoft Teams license
• The guest access level is at the Team level, not the channel level, they have access to all channels in a Team
• On the backend, Azure B2B Collaboration creates guest user accounts to enable access