How to add guest accounts to your Microsoft Teams
Guest domains are limited to those domains approved by UCF Information Security and may be updated periodically. The limited domains for Guest access will generate Teams behaviors that need to be understood as owners add Guests and as Guests access UCF Teams. Below are some screen shots and expected messages and behaviors to ensure only allowed domains can access UCF Teams.
Adding Guests in MS Teams
Microsoft Teams allows users who are not part of the organization to participate in MS Team sites with a slightly reduced set of functionalities within the application. These are “guests” in MS Teams. For UCF’s current configuration, a guest is defined as anyone who does not have an account on UCF's Office 365 system. Guests do NOT have to be licensed for MS Teams.
Note: Anyone may participate in meetings hosted on the MS Teams platform. You do not need to have access to MS Teams and/or be a member or guest of a team to participate.
Types of Guests Allowed
The University of Central Florida allows guests in the Office 365 system to participate in MS Teams under the following if they are External partners working with UCF who require access to collaboration tools as a function of their partnership.
To request external guest access outside of UCF to chat, call, meet, and collaborate on files please submit a new request:
Click here to request Guest Access
Approved External Partners (Updated 2/6/2024)
valenciacollege.edu
lync.zoom.us
knights.ucf.edu
microsoft.com
smyre.info
usf.edu
osu.edu
miami.edu
unf.edu
ufl.edu
fsu.edu
nova.edu
fgcu.edu
accenture.com
gartner.com
hcg.com
usda.gov
va.gov
ballaerospace.com
ball.com
usgs.gov
physics.ox.ac.uk
Avanade.com
flvs.net
hornepr.com
orlandohealth.com
connection.com
assetworks.com
army.mil
sailpoint.com
fau.edu
athletics.ucf.edu
yahoo.com
brasscommunications.com
gmail.com
audiocodes.com
HCAHealthcare.com
txstate.edu
nemours.org
mit.edu
southernct.edu
aurorak12.org
montclair.edu
embracefamilies.org
us.navy.mil
eisneramper.com
Sedgwick.com
baesystems.us
swri.edu
cu.edu
gov.wales
henkel.com
nokia-bell-labs.com
siemens-healthineers.com
tu-dresden.de
cisco.com
qti.qualcomm.com
kaist.ac.kr
analog.com
iitrpr.ac.in
kennesaw.edu
intel.com
corning.com
pseudolithic.com
us.ibm.com
fudan.edu.cn
adventhealth.com
mepssllc.com
mdc.edu
marshmallow-electronics.com
seu.edu.cn
lssc.edu
prometsource.com
ucl.ac.uk
seminolestate.edu
wfu.edu
umd.edu
virginia.edu
anu.edu.au
Guest Access
In general, guests have most of the same capabilities that internal team members have within a given MS Team, such as:
- Creating Channels (if access granted by Team Owner)
- Participate in Private Chat or Group Posts
- Share and edit files within a Team
- See and access information within Teams/Channels
The following provides details on the capabilities: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/team-owner-member-and-guest-capabilities-in-teams-d03fdf5b-1a6e-48e4-8e07-b13e1350ec7b
Security for Guests
To ensure safety and site security, UCF cautions all users to be extra mindful of security when adding a guest to your team. UCF requires Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) to access all Office 365 applications as an extra layer of protection for personal and UCF information.
- Guests can generally see and do everything in a Team that a regular member can unless the team owner modifies the Team’s settings to limit capabilities.
Add Guests to a Team
Guest settings are managed via the MS Teams’ settings area. To reach the settings, click on the ellipsis (“…”) next to the team’s name and then select “Manage Team." From here, select the Settings tab and update all the available team settings, including those related to guest access.
Team Owner Settings:
1. Owners can set Guest permissions by clicking the “…” next to the Team name, and then Manage Team.
2. Owners will be notified via the “Manage Team” option if the Team already has Guests as members, shown as “This team has guests”. Under the Settings tab, Owners can select “Guest Permissions”.
3. Guest Permissions are limited to Creating or Deleting Channels. Owners should understand that in every other sense a Guest is a full Team member with full rights to chat, edit or delete files, or any other access that an internal member would inherit.
4. The phrase “add people outside your organization as guests” notifies the Owner that the Team is allowed to add Guests.
NOTE: You must be a Team owner to add a Guest
Owner Guest Addition Scenarios
Scenario 1 – Guest domains are limited to those domains approved by UCF Information Security and may be updated periodically as they review and approve additional requests on a case by case basis. Currently, Guest Access is limited to .edu and .org domains.
Scenario 2 – New Guest is an external email address such as Gmail, Yahoo, or any other domain. Attempting to add a Guest via Teams that is not already in the tenant from another system will fail. Note that the failure error is not descriptive as to the reason. It will only show the error below as “Something went wrong”.
Scenario 3 – Guest Account that has been created via sharing process of SharePoint or OneDrive for a Site, Folder, or Document. Microsoft is implementing a standard that will continue to create Guest accounts for any sharing that occurs via SharePoint or OneDrive. Because the Guest Account is created and exists in Azure Active Directory, Teams is able to see the Guest and adds the account as a Member in Teams. NOTE: While an existing Guest User CAN be added as a Member of a Teams, because the email address is not in the approved domain list the account will NOT be able to login to UCF Teams.
Error Login Screen for unauthorized domains
The screen below will show when a domain that is not on the approved lists attempts to login to UCF Teams as a Guest, even if they are shown as a Team member.
Guests Accessing UCF Teams
1. User should sign-into Teams using their normal system credentials
2. Authorized Guest domains will see the UCF domain in their list of authentication domains in the top right corner of Teams next to their Name. As activity occurs in the Teams, they are members notifications will appear (red dot with a number). Clicking the down arrow and selecting the domain to access will log in to the UCF domain. First time users will be prompted with several welcome screens.