“How can we collaborate with our external partners directly in Microsoft Teams without adding them as guests to our entire organization?” This question reflects a common challenge many IT administrators face when managing cross-organizational collaboration. Traditional guest access often provides too much visibility into internal Teams and channels, while email chains create communication silos that hinder productivity and project transparency.
Creating a shared Teams channel – solution overview
Teams shared channels address this collaboration challenge by allowing organizations to create dedicated spaces where internal team members can work directly with external participants from other organizations. Unlike guest access, shared channels provide granular control over what external users can see and access, limiting their visibility to only the specific channel content rather than the entire team structure.
Purpose: walk you through the complete process of enabling shared channels in your Microsoft Teams environment, from initial tenant configuration through creating your first external Teams channel. We’ll cover the necessary administrative settings, step-by-step channel creation, and essential configuration options to ensure secure and effective cross-organizational collaboration.
Prerequisites: You’ll need Global Administrator or Teams Administrator permissions in Microsoft 365, plus confirmation that your organization’s security policies permit external collaboration. The external organizations you plan to collaborate with must also have shared channels enabled in their tenants.
How to view shared channels in Teams and configure settings?
Before creating shared channels, you must first enable this feature at the organizational level through the Teams Admin Center. Navigate to the Microsoft Teams Admin Center by accessing admin.microsoft.com and selecting the Teams option from the left navigation menu. Once inside the Teams Admin Center, you’ll need to modify your organization’s external access policies to permit shared channel functionality.
- Access the Teams Admin Center and navigate to External access under the Users section in the left sidebar menu.
- Enable the “Shared channels” toggle switch, which allows your organization to create shared channels and accept invitations from external organizations.
- Configure your trusted organizations list by adding the specific domains you want to collaborate with, or select “Allow all external domains” if your security policies permit broader access.
- Save your external access configuration changes and allow up to 24 hours for the policy updates to propagate across your tenant environment.
- Navigate to Teams policies and select the specific policy assigned to users who will create or participate in shared channels within your organization.
- Enable “Allow shared channels” and “Allow users to share channels with people outside your organization” options in the Teams policy settings.
- Apply the updated policy to the relevant user groups and confirm that the changes are reflected in their Teams client applications.
Expert Tip: Consider creating a dedicated Teams policy specifically for users who need shared channel capabilities rather than enabling this feature organization-wide, providing better security control over external collaboration.
Microsoft Teams shared channel settings and permissions
Once organizational settings are configured, you can proceed with creating your first shared Teams channel. Open Microsoft Teams and navigate to the team where you want to create the shared channel, keeping in mind that the team must be either Public or Private (shared channels cannot be created within organization-wide teams).
- Click the three dots next to your target team name and select “Add channel” from the context menu that appears.
- Choose “Shared” as the channel type and provide a descriptive name that clearly indicates the channel’s purpose and external collaboration scope.
- Add a detailed description explaining the channel’s purpose, collaboration objectives, and any relevant guidelines for external participants to follow.
- Configure the channel privacy settings by selecting whether the shared channel should be discoverable by team members or restricted to invited participants only.
- Add internal team members who should have access to the shared channel by typing their names in the members field during creation.
- Save the channel configuration and proceed to invite external participants by clicking the “Add people” option within the newly created shared channel.
Configure shared channels Teams for external collaboration
Adding external participants to your shared channel requires careful attention to email addresses and organizational domains. Each external participant must be invited using their complete email address, and their organization must have shared channels enabled and configured to accept invitations from your domain.
- Within your shared channel, click the “Add people” button located in the channel header or access it through the channel settings menu.
- Enter the complete email addresses of external participants, ensuring you’re using their business email addresses rather than personal accounts for security compliance.
- Include a personalized invitation message explaining the collaboration purpose, expected participation level, and any relevant project context or deadlines.
- Set appropriate permission levels for external participants, choosing between standard member access or more restricted guest-like permissions based on your collaboration requirements.
- Send the invitations and monitor the channel for acceptance notifications, as external participants must accept invitations before they can access channel content.
- Configure channel-specific settings such as file sharing permissions, meeting scheduling capabilities, and app integration access based on your collaboration needs and security policies.
Important Tip: External participants will only see the shared channel content and cannot access other channels within your team, providing natural security boundaries for sensitive internal discussions.
Shared channel in Microsoft Teams troubleshooting
Several common issues can prevent successful shared channel creation and external collaboration. Understanding these challenges and their solutions will help you maintain smooth cross-organizational Teams collaboration.
- Shared channels option is unavailable: Verify that your Teams Admin Center has shared channels enabled in external access settings and that your Teams policy permits shared channel creation for your user account.
- External invitations are not being received: Confirm that the external organization has shared channels enabled and that your domain is either in their allowed list or they permit all external domains in their external access configuration.
- External participants cannot access shared content: Check that invited external users have accepted their invitations and that their organization’s firewall or security policies are not blocking Teams shared channel functionality across tenant boundaries.
- Channel creation fails with permission errors: Ensure you have appropriate permissions within the target team and that the team type supports shared channels, as organization-wide teams cannot contain shared channels due to Microsoft’s architectural limitations.