A quick chat with a colleague and two people from a client? You don't need to schedule a meeting or add anyone as a guest to a team. In Teams you can start a group chat with internal and external participants together, as long as both organisations are allowed to talk to each other. This article explains how it works, what you can and can't do, and what your admin needs to set up.
Start a group chat with external people
- In Teams, click New chat (the pencil at the top of your chat list).
- In the To field, type the names of your colleagues.
- For external people, type their full email address, for example an.peeters@client.com, and choose Search externally.
- Give the chat a name, for example "Client X – quote", so everyone finds it again.
- Send your first message. The external participants get a notification in their own Teams.
External participants get the External label next to their name. So you always see who you're talking to, and you think twice about what you share.
What can you do in such a chat?
- Messages, reactions, emoji and GIFs.
- Mentions with
@name. - Audio and video calls with the whole group, straight from the chat.
- Sharing files as attachments is limited or not possible. Rather share them with a link from OneDrive or SharePoint, where you decide who may open it.
External access or guest access?
Teams has two ways to work with people outside your organisation. They're often mixed up:
- External access (federation): the other person stays in their own Teams and their own organisation. You can chat, call and meet. This is what a group chat like the one above uses.
- Guest access: the other person gets a guest account in your organisation and becomes a member of a team. They get access to that team's channels, files and apps, but have to switch to your organisation in Teams to use them.
For a short collaboration a group chat is enough. If you work together for months on a project with files and planning, create a team with the external person as a guest, or use a shared channel. Read five ways to work with external people and add guests to Teams.
Doesn't it work?
Can't find the external person with Search externally, or does Teams say you can't reach them? Go through this list:
- Check the email address. Use the address they sign in to Teams with.
- Both organisations must allow external access, for all domains or for each other's domain. The admin sets that in the Teams admin center > Users > External access. Read turn on external access.
- The external access policy must also be enabled for your user.
- Does the other person use the free Teams for personal use? Then your organisation must also allow chats with Teams accounts not managed by an organisation.
Work together safely
- Don't share confidential files in the chat itself; use links with the right permissions and an expiry date.
- Remove external people from the chat when the project is over, through the People icon at the top of the chat.
- Be careful with messages from unknown external senders. Teams first shows a preview and asks whether you want to accept or block the message.