Add your clients as guests in Microsoft Teams

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In Microsoft Teams, you can add your clients as guests to a team. Adding them as a team allows you to share files together, communicate in shared channels, and stay connected as you collaborate on a project. It's a terrific way to keep all communication and files in a single place where everyone has access to it.

What will I learn?

How to create a team in Teams
How to add guests to your team

What do I need?

Microsoft Teams
5 minutes

If you don't have an existing Microsoft 365 group or team, you're starting with a clean slate, and you get to choose how your team is organized and set up.

When your team is created, you'll get a corresponding SharePoint site and OneNote.

Note

Your org can restrict who can create teams. If you can't create a team or need to turn off team creation, check with your IT admin.

Create a team from scratch:

Choose Teams on the left side of the app, then select Join or create a team at the bottom of your teams list.
Hover over the Create a team card and select Create team.
Choose From scratch.
Decide what kind of team that you want this to be: • To limit content and conversation to a specific set of people, choose Private.

• For a community or topic that anyone in the org can join, choose Public.
Name your team and add an optional description.
When you're done, select Create.

Important

If you're a global admin, you’ll see an option to create an org-wide team. These are great for situations when you want to automatically add all of the employees in your organization.

Guests must have a Microsoft 365 work or school account. If the guest doesn’t yet have a Microsoft account associated with their email address, they will be directed to create one for free.

Note

After you add a guest to a team, it may take a few hours before they have access. Guests outside your org will get an email with an invitation to join the team, and can only access the team after accepting the invitation.

To add a guest to your team in Teams:

Select Teams and go to the team in your team list.
Select More options > Add member.
Enter the guest's email address. Anyone with a business or consumer email account, such as Outlook, Gmail, or others, can join your team as a guest.

Important
If you receive a "We didn't find any matches" error while trying to add a guest, your business doesn't allow guests. Connect with the person who manages your company's Microsoft 365 subscription, like your IT support.
Add your guest's name. Select Edit guest information and type a friendly name for them. Be sure to take the time to do this now—you’ll need the help of an IT admin to do it later.
Select Add. Guests will receive a welcome email invitation that includes some information about joining Teams and what the guest experience is like.

Note

When you add a guest, only their name gets added to their profile card. To add or change other info (such as phone number or title), you'll need to contact your IT admin.