But to establish the same connection with people outside the organization, administrators must configure their own policies and provisioning of Teams which, if applied too broadly, can expose sensitive data to guests. or create a proliferation of Teams to keep outside audiences siled.
These concerns may soon be a thing of the past.
The creation of Microsoft Teams Connect (aka "shared channels") is intended to help organizations ensure seamless and secure collaboration outside of their digital walls with Microsoft Development Services.
What are shared channels in Microsoft Teams?
In a way, shared channels are similar to private channels in that shared channels also provide an exclusive space for approved members only.
However, shared channels make it easier for external users to participate (as well as internal users who can now be invited without first having to join the top-level Teams team hosting the channel).
"Businesses operate in dynamic environments where connecting with partners, suppliers and customers is a critical component of business success," Microsoft Teams senior program manager Arun Das said last week . “They tell us that when external collaboration is optimized, it can improve visibility, accountability and trust. »
Here's what we learned during the Ignite session on Shared Channels (currently in private preview and slated for public preview early next year) and what the announcement means for Microsoft Teams users.
1. Shared channels are designed to be secure
When it arrives, the split channel feature will not be automatically enabled, but it will offer granular control to best suit an organization's needs.
For cross-tenant shared channels, administrators on both sides must configure the "Tenant Posting" cross-tenant access policy, and the shared channel will need to configure inbound access specifying which people from the external tenant are allowed to participate. (Similarly, you'll need to set up outbound access specifying who in your own tenant can participate in the external shared channel).
A shared channel will not inherit a team's membership, but will adopt the existing settings. So when a shared channel is shared with another tenant, standard host policies apply. Likewise, when a shared channel is shared with another team, the host team's privacy label will apply.
2. Inviting a user to shared channels in Teams is easy
Admins can choose to invite one person or an entire team to collaborate in a shared channel. These people can be from your own organization or from an external party with Azure Active Directory.
Once external users are added to a shared channel, they can view and access the channel directly from their Teams account. There is no need to change tenants or log in with another account. This is a great advantage in terms of continuity and efficiency.
Regardless of which side you are on, identifying a shared channel is simple: an icon will appear next to the channel name to make it clear to participants on all sides that a cross-tenant target group is collaborating in this space. To this end, external users will also see “(External)” appear next to their name.
3. External users can only access the shared channel (and nothing else)
In the current design of Microsoft Teams, a user invited to a channel also has default access to all other non-private channels in that Teams team. This is obviously not ideal.
Fortunately, this will no longer be the case. With shared channels, a guest user (whether internal or external) can only access and communicate in that specific channel.
This not only helps provide a secure experience, but also improves efficiency by avoiding the proliferation and complexity that can arise when trying to protect externally shared data by creating new teams.
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