Teams: Troubleshooting Issues with Guests Connecting to Meetings

Overview

Microsoft Teams is an easy way to pull together a group to share, collaborate and communicate in one central location without the use of phone calls that take time away from our day or emails that can easily get buried.  Teams is a great platform to hold meetings with both Cedar Crest constituents and those from outside the College.  However, there are times that guests can encounter issues connecting to Teams meetings depending on their computer, their internet connectivity, and the status of a separate Microsoft account (if one exists).

These suggestions are good for both Teams Meetings and Teams Live Events.

In addition to these suggestions, here is a link to Microsoft's Joining Live Events Checklist.

Here are some best practices, and help troubleshooting issues that guests may encounter.

Best Practices with Guests (Attendees)

  1. Purposefully invite them to the meeting.  This means that when you create the meeting, enter their email address into the meeting as someone who has been invited.  By doing this, you are adding them as a guest in our Teams tenant, and this will bypass almost all other issues you may encounter.
  2. If this is not possible, or you are having an open meeting, ask your guests to make sure they are logged out of all Microsoft accounts before joining the meeting, and to make sure they have restarted their computer before joining.
  3. While Teams supports joining meetings as a guest from any supported platform, it is still best to use a computer (Windows or MacOS).  
  4. If you are inviting someone from outside the College to a standing meeting (repeating regularly, or a Teams Channel meeting) they should be added to that meeting purposefully, or they may not be able to access the link.
  5. Generally speaking, guests who are joining meetings as attendees have the best experience joining from a web browser.  However, if they have been invited via a calendar invitation and have a Microsoft account, they should download the desktop application and sign in with their Microsoft account for the best experience.
  6. For a Teams Live Event, ensure that you have created the type of event you wish to have.  If you wish to have non-Cedar Crest attendees, you must choose Public as the type of meeting, and then share the link with them.  Any other selection will require everyone to log in to their account to attend.

Best Practices with Guests (Presenters)

  1. Presenters must be purposefully invited to the meetings/events.
  2. If you are inviting someone from outside the College to a standing meeting (repeating regularly, or a Teams Channel meeting) they should be added to that meeting purposefully, or they may not be able to access the link.
  3. Presenters should have a Microsoft account, but it is not absolutely required for a Teams Meeting.
  4. Presenters in a Teams Meeting can use the desktop client (requires a Microsoft account) or a web browser (does not require a Microsoft account) to present.  They should use Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge to present from a web browser.
  5. For Teams Live Events, click here for specific requirements.

Troubleshooting Guest Connectivity Issues

If a guest is using a modern web browser (Chrome or Edge), connecting to a Teams Meeting or Teams Live Event is generally quick, and easy.  However, there are situations in which issues can arise that we do not have control over.

Asked to login to meeting and receive the error: User account 'person@email.com' from identity provider 'email.com' does not exist in tenant 'Cedar Crest College'

This occurs because the individual is either currently logged in to their Microsoft account in their web browser, or did not completely log out of their previous session.  To resolve this, they can do one of a number of things.

  • Clear their browser cache and cookies, close the browser, try again.  For instructions on how to do this in specific browsers, click here.

If that does not work:

  1. Open an Incognito or InPrivate browser window.
    In Google Chrome: Either hit Ctrl-Shift-N or Click on the three dots in the upper-right corner, then New Incognito Window



    In Microsoft Edge: Either hit Ctrl-Shift-N or Click on the three dots in the upper-right corner, then New InPrivate Window


     
  2. Next, copy and paste the link to the meeting in the Incognito or InPrivate browser window.  This will allow the attendee to jump into the meeting without logging referencing their Microsoft credentials.
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