Manage Guests and External Sharing in Teams

There will always be times when you have to invite guests and other external users to your Microsoft Teams meetings, especially if you want to take advantage of the many collaboration options offered through the platform. However, you need to be very careful with guests and external users–especially in today’s cybersecurity-centric world.

Today we want to highlight some ideas to consider for your Microsoft Teams external user governance.

Microsoft Teams, Guest Access, and Managing External Users

Since Teams is a collaboration tool, it makes sense that your organization will want to have some policies in place to ensure that only authorized individuals have access to your solutions. However, Teams is more than just a place to hold meetings. It’s also a place to share resources in real time. As such, you’ll have to be careful with its implementation if you want to ensure security.

Here are some vital questions that you’ll need to answer if you want to ensure full security and functionality of your Teams solution:

Does Your Business Review Guests and Access?

Your business must have a policy in place to review who has access to what information at any given time. This is important for two reasons: 1) Project needs change over time, and 2) Staffing levels change over time. You want to control access to information and resources so that you’re not inadvertently putting your company at risk of a cyberattack, theft, or sabotage.

Does Your Business Control Guest Team Invites?

Do you have a policy in place for who can send guest invitations to join Teams? If not, then perhaps you should consider the ramifications of giving someone this capability who should not be responsible for it. If someone were to accidentally share with the wrong individual, and that individual happens to be a hacker or competitor, you’ve got a real problem on your hands.

What Can Guests Access from Their Teams?

There is a difference between guest access and external sharing. External sharing gives your organization the ability to collaborate with guests in a document or in a site by sharing a link with them. Allowing an external guest to join a Team basically gives them access to that team’s information. You can control access at various levels, and we recommend that you consider what each of them can access to ensure protection of your important resources.

We Can Help You Deploy and Set Up Microsoft Teams

White Mountain IT Services can help your business consider all of the variables when it comes to Microsoft Teams, external users, and guest access. We’ll walk you through this process either during implementation or well before it, depending on where your business is in the process. Learn more by calling us today at (603) 889-0800.