External Users in Teams

Owned by Dan Jakubiak
Jan 16, 2025
2 min read

Students, faculty, and staff may add people who do not have a “@uconn.edu” email address to their team for real-time collaboration.

The external user needs to have a Microsoft account to use Microsoft 365 apps. Both paid and free Microsoft accounts will allow them to collaborate on UConn files; your files, and files uploaded by the external user, are held within the storage that UConn pays for. Ensure that you invite external users by the email address they have associated with their Microsoft Account.

Add an external user

You must be an Owner of the SharePoint site to add Members.

  1. Visit your team in the Teams App or at teams.microsoft.com.

  2. Click on the ellipsis that sits next to your team name in the top left corner of the window.

    image-20250116-145454.png

  3. Type in the non “@uconn.edu” email address.

  4. The person will receive an email invitation.

External Users' experience

  1. The person will receive an email that contains a button saying “Open Microsoft Teams”.

  2. When they click on the link, the website will check if they have the Teams app installed.

    1. If they do, they will be asked to allow the webpage to open the app.

    2. If they do not, they will be asked to either download the Teams app or open Teams in the browser.

    3. The browser and the app have the same feature set; either may be used.

  3. If the person is asked to sign in, they will be brought to a UConn sign in page which asks for a UConn email address.
    The external user needs to type in their personal email address, the one that received the invitation.
    They will be redirected to a non-UConn login page to complete their authentication.

  4. They may now collaborate on your files and upload their own into the team.

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