Collaborate in Microsoft Teams at IU with external contacts

• Overview
• Add a contact to Microsoft Teams
• Add an external collaborator to a team
• Add an external collaborator to a private channel

Overview

In Microsoft Teams at IU, you can add people who use Microsoft Teams at other organizations as guest users. For more, see Communicate with users from other organizations in Microsoft Teams.

Add a contact to Microsoft Teams

To add a contact to Microsoft Teams:

1. Click Calls. If you don't see it in the side menu, click the three dots (...), and then Calls.
2. Click Add contact.
3. Enter the email address of the contact, and then click Add.

For more about managing contacts, see View or add contacts in Microsoft Teams.

Add an external collaborator to a team

To add an external collaborator to a Microsoft Teams team as a guest:

1. Navigate to the team, click the three dots (...) beside the team name, and then click Add member.
2. Enter the email address of the external collaborator. If you have the external collaborator added as a contact, select the result that appears. If not, click Add [email address] as a guest, then Add, and then Close.
3. The guest will receive an invitation at their email address with information to access the team.

Add an external collaborator to a private channel

To add an external collaborator to a private channel within a Microsoft Teams team:

1. Click the three dots (...) beside the channel, and then click Add member.
2. Enter the email address of the external collaborator. If you have the external collaborator added as a contact, select the result that appears. If not, click Add [email address] as a guest, then Add, and then Close.
3. The guest will receive an invitation at their email address with information to access the private channel.

   To be able to successfully accept the invitation, the guest user will need to have a Microsoft account with access to Microsoft Teams. The guest may also be required to set up Microsoft two-factor authentication when they first access the team (it will prompt them to enter a phone number for call/text), and, if the guest user's Microsoft account is a member of Microsoft Teams at another institution, they may need to use the drop-down menu at the top right of their Microsoft Teams client to switch between views for their home institution, Indiana University, and any other institutions through which they have access to Microsoft Teams.

   Note:

   If a guest user without a Microsoft account enters their email address when trying to access a team, they may be redirected to an IU Login page rather than receiving an error message explaining the issue.