Teams Meetings with External People

[psydii]

@maxrebo Support tell me the product team are able to reproduce in the lab. Support just closed my ticket because 'that's the way that combination of things work'. Hopefully there is a UserVoice open for this. We need to all pile onto it, and if anyone has any relationship with the Teams or Edu Teams product team we need to put the pressure on.

[maxrebo]

Its getting ridiculous this now, teachers are complaining left right and centre!, and rightly so!

 

Our default meeting option settings for who can bypass the Lobby are : "People in my organisation and guests" - there doesn't seem anything in between?!

the setting I have in Teams Admin Centre is - Automatically admit people - "Everyone in my organisation"

 

Is this the best setting we can get? or am I missing something?

[maxrebo]

Just wondering, does anyone have Guest access enabled? We currently do, for external users to be able to get in.

Is there another way round allowing external people in if guest access is disabled?

[Ex-MGSTech]

Just wondering, does anyone have Guest access enabled? We currently do, for external users to be able to get in.

Is there another way round allowing external people in if guest access is disabled?

 

 

External access enabled (tested with external source)

Guest Access Disabled

Anonymous Access disabled

Who can bypass the lobby: Organiser Only

 

If that's any help

[lmgtfy]

External access enabled (tested with external source)

Guest Access Disabled

Anonymous Access disabled

Who can bypass the lobby: Organiser Only

 

If that's any help

 

Thanks for the above, but can you expand where these settings are from?

[Ex-MGSTech]

Thanks for the above, but can you expand where these settings are from?

 

I take it you are not familiar with the O365 Admin portal?

 

I can...just not right this second....

[lmgtfy]

I take it you are not familiar with the O365 Admin portal?

 

I can...just not right this second....

 

Thanks if you can I would appreciate it :-)

[maxrebo]

Thanks for the above, but can you expand where these settings are from?

Thank you, Great help.

I will try this and test external access afterwards.

[lmgtfy]

Some of them seem to be able to get through without "(Guest)" on the end - Does anyone know why this is? In my testing it appended it with (Guest).

Thanks

 

Yes I've managed to replicate this. If you install the app on a mobile device and don't sign in and then open a meeting link it allows you to connect and enter your own name and you will enter the meeting without (guest) in your name. Brilliant job Microsoft!

[lmgtfy]

For live lessons....

- Anonymous access enabled, because as you say - it's required for external meetings

- Students always access their live lessons by signing in first, using the School issued M365 credentials and therefore bypass the lobby

- Staff know that they must never admit anyone in via the lobby

- We use 'meet now' rather than schedule lessons which means students don't get the join link by e-mail, they can get it once they have joined the meeting but as long as staff don't admit anyone through the lobby that is irrelevant

 

 

I like this as a solution but I guess the only thing it doesn't cover is the wrong students from a different class connecting after being shared the link. I guess you can't have it all its either this way, checking the lobby like a hawk or disabling anonymous access as it stands.

[robyholmes]

Yes I've managed to replicate this. If you install the app on a mobile device and don't sign in and then open a meeting link it allows you to connect and enter your own name and you will enter the meeting without (guest) in your name. Brilliant job Microsoft!

Do we know if Microsoft is aware of this? If you have external access disable does it still work?

[psydii]

Do we know if Microsoft is aware of this? If you have external access disable does it still work?

 

Yes they are. Raise a ticket via the admin portal. This is clearly unintended behaviour.

 

Don’t let them close the ticket, request escalation.

 

If the direct you to a user voice post, go and vote on it.

 

Be sympathetic to the people you speak to but do not accept being fobbed off.

 

If you are on A3/5 speak to your account manager, get them to shout about it too.

 

 

Disabling anonymous access stops the bypass.

 

But that is not practical for many orgs that need to engage with members of the public.

[maxrebo]

Yes they are. Raise a ticket via the admin portal. This is clearly unintended behaviour.

 

Don’t let them close the ticket, request escalation.

 

If the direct you to a user voice post, go and vote on it.

 

Be sympathetic to the people you speak to but do not accept being fobbed off.

 

If you are on A3/5 speak to your account manager, get them to shout about it too.

 

 

Disabling anonymous access stops the bypass.

 

But that is not practical for many orgs that need to engage with members of the public.

I've enabled external access but disabled guest.

Will this allow external users to join meetings with out org ok?

 

Another thing pupils seem to be doing is joining other class meetings!. Which I don't think we can stop until MS release the invite only update.

[robyholmes]

I've confirmed this morning on my own setup that joining from the android app as a guest doesn't show with (Guest) on the end of the name. Meaning you can spoof another invited user and the organiser can't tell the difference.

 

Has anyone tested with the iOS app?

 

I've opened a support ticket via Office 365 and emailed Microsoft Education Support

[lmgtfy]

I've confirmed this morning on my own setup that joining from the android app as a guest doesn't show with (Guest) on the end of the name. Meaning you can spoof another invited user and the organiser can't tell the difference.

 

Has anyone tested with the iOS app?

 

I've opened a support ticket via Office 365 and emailed Microsoft Education Support

Yes it's the same on all mobile apps so probably Chromebooks too

[robyholmes]

I've now got Office 365 support to replicate the issue but they've not yet confirmed if it's going to be fixed. I've also heard back from Microsoft UK Education Support to say they are waiting to hear back from the development team. Lets see what happens.

[BroganOs]

We've ben using this method successfully for a while, the teachers much prefer it to the lobby, but how are you getting an Attendance record? Manually?

 

The reason students can join as guests is because you are scheduling the meeting, which sends an invite with a link to join - which they can follow and choose the guest option.

In our policy, we instruct teachers to use 'meet now' instead. This sends no invite, and the students can only join the meeting by being signed in to their Teams account, browsing to the correct Team, seeing the ongoing meeting and clicking join.

This is the method we established in our pilot back in June, and successfully used for a fortnight just recently when we had a year group isolating at home, for all of their live lessons. It helps that we use Salamander to publish their timetable to their mailbox calendar, which shows in Teams calendar. So they knew where to be and when.

This way you can still host your external meetings too.

[smarties11]

We've ben using this method successfully for a while, the teachers much prefer it to the lobby, but how are you getting an Attendance record? Manually?

 

Teachers can download an attendance record from the three dots menu of the participants panel. We also give those members of staff responsible for attendance the "Teams communication support engineer" role in O365 admin which enables them to look at call history in Teams Admin Centre in order to verify attendance if there are any discrepancies. We were finding that when Teachers reported non-attendance and our attendance staff called home, parents and students were saying they were in attendance (when we knew they weren't), blaming it on technical reasons. Once I gave our attendance staff access to this and showed them how to use it and reassured them that this information is concrete and should not be challenged, this soon stopped!

[BroganOs]

Thanks, I was going mad trying to find the Attendance report to download!

[bigjb]

As a follow up to this post had a look in our tenancy today and noticed the setting "People I Invite"