Teams: How to Add and Manage Guest Users

Summary:

This article overviews how to add and manage collaborators on Microsoft Teams. The team owner is the only one allowed to add collaborators to a team. Guest collaborators can be added.

Content:

Add a guest to your team

Guests must have an Office 365 work or school account. If the guest doesn’t yet have a Microsoft account associated with their email address, they will be directed to create one for free.

To add a guest to your team in Teams:

  1. Select Teams  Teams button and go to the team in your team list.

  2. Select More options More options button > Add member.

    Add members to a team in Teams

  3. Enter the guest's email address. Anyone with a business or consumer email account, such as Outlook, Gmail, or others, can join your team as a guest.

    Note: If you receive a "We didn't find any matches" error while trying to add a guest, your organization doesn't allow guests. 

  4. Add your guest's name. Select Edit guest information Edit guest name button and type a friendly name for them. Be sure to take the time to do this now—you’ll need the help of an IT admin to do it later.

    Edit guest information in Teams.

  5.  Click Add. Guests will receive a welcome email invitation that includes some information about joining Teams and what the guest experience is like

    Now that all that's done, the next thing you're going to do is set guest permissions.

Note: When you add a guest, only their name gets added to their profile card. To add or change other info (such as phone number or title), you'll need to contact your IT admin.

Identify guests on a team

To see if a team has any guests, just look below the heading where the team name shows up.

Channel header indicating a guest in the group

You can tell if someone is a guest by looking anywhere their name appears—the word “Guest” appears after it. You can also see everyone’s roles in the Members tab of a team. Go to the team name and select More options More options button > Manage team and then Members.

Switch guest accounts in Teams

Go to the accounts menu to the left of a profile picture at the top of the app, then pick the team or guest account you want. For example, if you are a normal Keene user, you will need to select the University of New Hampshire guest account.

Guest Capabilities

Every member in Teams has a role, and each one has different permissions. 

  • Owners
    Team owners manage certain settings for the team. They add and remove members, add guests, change team settings, and handle administrative tasks. There can be multiple owners in a team.

  • Members
    Members are the people in the team. They talk with other team members in conversations. They can view and usually upload and change files. They also do the usual sorts of collaboration that the team owners have permitted.

  • Guests
    Guests are people from outside of your organization that a team owner invites, such as partners or consultants to join the team. Guests have fewer capabilities than team members or team owners, but there's still a lot they can do.

Note: File permissions for members and guests reflect whatever your admin has set in your SharePoint settings. These can only be changed by your admin.

The following table shows the capabilities available for each role:

Capability

Owner

Member

Guest

Create a channel

checkmark

checkmark

checkmark

Participate in a private chat

checkmark

checkmark

checkmark

Participate in a channel conversation

checkmark

checkmark

checkmark

Share a channel file

checkmark

checkmark

checkmark

Share a chat file

checkmark

checkmark

 

Add apps (such as tabs, bots, or connectors)

checkmark

checkmark

 

Can be invited via any work or school account for Office 365

 

 

checkmark

Create a team

checkmark

checkmark

 

Delete or edit posted messages

checkmark

checkmark

checkmark

Discover and join public teams

checkmark

checkmark

 

View org chart

checkmark

checkmark

 

Add or remove members and guests

checkmark

 

 

Edit or delete a team

checkmark

 

 

Set team permissions for channels, tabs, and connectors

checkmark

 

 

Change the team picture

checkmark

 

 

Add guests to a team

checkmark

 

 

Auto-show channels for the whole team

checkmark

 

 

Control @[team name] mentions

checkmark

 

 

Allow @channel or @[channel name] mentions

checkmark

 

 

Allow usage of emoji, GIFs, and memes

checkmark

 

 

Renew a team

checkmark

 

 

Archive or restore a team

checkmark

 

 

Need Additional Help?

LinkedIn Learning - Microsoft Teams

Please fill out the Microsoft 365 Support webform with as much detail as possible, or contact the ET&S Help Desk team on your local campus.

Details

Article ID: 2163
Created
Thu 2/27/20 11:06 AM
Modified
Wed 6/16/21 10:41 AM
Applicable Institution(s):
Granite State College (GSC)
Keene State College (KSC)
Plymouth State University (PSU)
University of New Hampshire (UNH)
USNH System Office