Microsoft Teams: how can I give read access to anybody in the organization WITHOUT adding them to the Teams Channel?

paulsm4

11/21/23, 10:37 PM

PROBLEM:

We've posted documents to an internal MS Teams Channel (e.g. .pdfs).
We have an IIS-based intranet web site.
We'd like to be able to post a link to the documents, giving anybody who can access the intranet site read-only access to the document.
Creating a link for "read only > anybody in the organization" does NOT work for anybody who's not a member of the Teams channel. They get an annoying pop-up saying they have to be "granted access" :(

Q: Is there ANY way to grant read-only access for documents posted in an MS Teams channel to ANYBODY in the organization? Without users having to explicitly "request access"?

I'm sure there's a simple answer ... but I haven't been able to find it.

PS: Our enterprise has an on-prem Active Directory, if that helps.

203

1 + 2

sharepoint

microsoft-teams

TheCleaner

12/21/23, 10:09 PM

the backend for the Teams channel is still Sharepoint, have you given them read-only access to the Sharepoint library itself inside Sharepoint? Alternatively is to use org-wide Teams channel but doesn't specifically answer your question.

paulsm4

12/21/23, 10:24 PM

@TheCleaner: thank you. I'm pretty much coming to the same conclusion: posting directly on SharePoint (vs. dealing with MS Teams Channels, which are a layer over SP) is probably the answer. My next challenge is working with my organization for the appropriate SharePoint access...

Score:1

Server

unixoid

12/22/23, 2:22 PM

One solution would be to grant access to the document by adding the entire organization as a guest to the Teams channel. To do this, you would need to be an owner of the Teams channel and follow these steps:

Go to the Teams channel and click on the "Add members" button.
In the "Add members" window, click on the "Add guests" button.
In the "Add guests" window, enter the email address of your organization (e.g. @yourcompany.com) and click "Add".
Confirm that you want to add the entire organization as guests by clicking "Add".

This will allow anyone in the organization to access the documents in the Teams channel without having to request access. Note that this may not work if your organization has strict guest access policies in place.

+ 5

paulsm4

12/22/23, 11:18 PM

Thank you for the response. I happen to be an "Owner" of the Teams Channel in question. I go into "Manage Teams", and see "Add Member". I can look up individuals by name. Under Member "Roles", I only see "Owner" and "Member" - no "Guest". Q: How do I add a "Guest"? Q: What should I search on for "Everybody"?

unixoid

12/22/23, 11:22 PM

1. Go to the Teams channel and click on the "Add members" button. 2. In the "Add members" window, click on the "Add guests" button. 3. In the "Add guests" window, enter the email address of the guest that you want to add to the channel and click "Add". 4. Confirm that you want to add the guest to the channel by clicking "Add".

unixoid

12/22/23, 11:25 PM

To add the entire organization as guests to the Teams channel: 1. Go to the Teams channel and click on the "Manage team" button. 2. In the "Manage team" window, click on the "Members" tab. 3. Click on the "Add members" button. 4. In the "Add members" window, enter the email address of your organization in the search field and click "Search". 5. Select the organization from the search results and click "Add". 6. In the "Set member permissions" window, select the "Guest" role for the organization and click "Add". If you can't locate 'Guest' it may be due to your organization policies.

paulsm4

12/23/23, 12:30 AM

Ah ... my "Manage Teams" UI doesn't happen to have any "Add guests". Nor do any of the "Role" dropdowns have any "Guest" option - only "Owner" or "Member". So I'm guessing my organization probably defined some policy somewhere that eliminated the "Guest" option. Anyway -time to "accept" ... and award you your well-earned bounty! Thank you for the help!

unixoid

12/23/23, 12:35 AM

Thank you, kind Sir!

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Microsoft Teams: how can I give read access to anybody in the organization *WITHOUT* adding them to the Teams Channel?

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