How to invite someone outside of your organization to a Teams meeting

Microsoft Teams has become a vital platform for many organizations. With the shift to virtual meetings and collaboration, the way we communicate internally and externally has changed drastically. It is more important than ever to make sure we are actively communicating and building relationships with those around us.    

Do you want include external contacts, clients, or customers in a meeting through Microsoft Teams? Luckily, the platform allows you to invite people outside of your organization to a Teams meeting with ease. Below you will find step by step instructions so you can get started! 

Create a meeting: 

  1. Open your Teams application.
  2. Click the Calendar icon on the left-hand side. The Calendar app window will open. 
  3. Click new meeting in the top right corner. The new meeting window will pop up and look like this:

Customize the meeting: 

  1. Add a title for the meeting in the Title field.
  2. Add attendees’ email addresses in the Add Required Attendees’ boxAfter typing in each email address, you will see an invite option pop up below. 
  3. Select the invite option. This will make the user a required attendee for the meeting. 
  4. Choose a time for the meeting and insert details accordingly.  
  5. If desired, add a specific Teams channel in the ‘Add channel’ box. This will allow people within that channel to be added to the meeting. This functionality will also add a post to the specified Teams channel which will advertise the meeting and add a meeting to the calendar of every person in that team.  
  6. Click Save to confirm the meeting, after all desired details are filled in.

Note: All invited external attendees receive an email invitation for the meeting which they can either accept or decline. The Teams meeting ‘Join’ link is provided in that calendar/email invite.