Microsoft Teams: Using Teams to Communicate with People External to VIU

Overview

Microsoft Teams is a messaging app where conversations, files, meetings, and more can be accessed by a group of employees or students, all in one place. For more information, visit How Do I Use Teams?

How can I communicate with People that are External to VIU?

There may be times where you need to collaborate with someone outside of VIU. Below are instructions to assist you.

NOTE: VIU has enabled our Teams application to allow you to add external contacts and for external contacts to add VIU employees to their Teams channel. However, not all organizations have these settings enabled.

If you are NOT ABLE to add an external contact, or an external contact is not able to add you, that external contacts organization likely has not enabled these Teams administration settings. Your external contact should reach out to their organizations IT department for assistance.

Starting October 1, 2024: If a Guest who has been invited to access Teams (and other Microsoft 365 Services) does not used their Guest account in 180 days, or if a Guest does not accept their invite within 30 days, they will automatically be removed from Teams (and other Microsoft 365 Services). Removed Guests can be re-invited.

Step one: Add your External Contact to your Teams Contacts

Add a Guest/External Contact to your Teams Contacts

To view your Teams contacts, select Calls in the left hand Teams mune. Then choose Contacts from the top menu.
Click 'Add contact'
Type in the email of the external contact you wish to add. Do not click anything. Teams will attempt to search the VIU contacts and will tell you that it did not find any matches
Click 'Search externally'
When prompted, select 'Add'

Step two: choose your Method of Contact

Start an Audio or Video call with an External Contact

To call a teams contact, select Calls and choose Contacts on the left. Here you'll find an A-Z list of all your contacts and a search bar that you can use to find someone specific.
On the right side of the contact line, select either the Audio or Video to start a call.

If you're already in a chat with your contact, you can also find these options in the top right corner of your teams window. You can also start a new call from a command. Go to the command box at the top of your screen and type /call, then type or select the name of the person you want to reach.

You can also start a one-on-one call from someone's profile card. Open it by clicking their picture in a channel or from a search.

Start a chat with an External Contact

On the left side of Teams, select Chat and then New chat to start a new chat.
Type the person’s email addressor phone number that you want to invite to chat.

► If the name matches, such as someone you’ve invited before, select their name.

► If there isn’t a name match, select Search [email address] externally to send them a chat invite.
To start the chat, type a message in the text box at the bottom and then select Send .

Tip: To format the message before you send it, choose one of the formatting options at the bottom of the chat before sending.

Can I add an external contact to a Teams Channel?

You cannot add an external user to a single channel, but you can add them to a Team, which gives them access to ALL the channels within that team.
However, it's very important to consider that this not only gives the guest access to every channel in the team, it also gives access to the historical data and files for each channel.
Please make sure your Guest/External Contact requires such access before approving.

If you need to chat with an external contact in a Team Channel (and a group chat won't do), you can request a new team.

How do I add an External Contact to a Team?

External contacts/Guests must have a Microsoft 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.

Note: After you add a guest to a team, it may take a few hours before they have access.

To add a guest to your team in Teams:

Select Teams and go to the team in your team list.
Select More options > Add member.
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, You may not have the appropriate credentials for this team.
Add your guest's name. Select Edit guest information 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.
Select Add. Guests will receive a welcome email invitation that includes some information about joining Teams and what the guest experience is like.