Chatting with External Users and Guests

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In a typical organization, an external user is a partner, or a customer with whom you need to communicate, or collaborate. In Microsoft Teams, there are two types of external users: federated users and guests. The first category refers to users from another domain, trusted by your organization. The second refers to users added as guests to your organization’s Active Directory, using their email addresses. You can chat with an external user, or a guest in the same way you chat with a colleague.

External access must be turned on by your administrator, so that you will be able to call, chat, and schedule meetings with external (federated) users. Unlike guests, federated users do not have access to teams and channels resources and cannot be added to a group chat. For more details on what external and guest users can and cannot do, visit Microsoft’s website at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/communicate-with-users-from-other-organizations.