(Updated) Updates to meeting chat membership

Updated December 8, 2020: Based off of feedback from early rings Microsoft has decided to make some changes prior to proceeding with the rollout. Microsoft will update this post with more details on the timing when they are ready to proceed.

Microsoft is updating a meeting participant’s access to meeting chat. These changes will manage a users access to a meeting chat based on how they were invited to the meeting.

Key Points:

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 68853
• Timing: Target Q1 and will update with more details once available
• Rollout: Tenant level
• Control: Managed by meeting participants invite to meeting

How this impacts your organization:

Once this has rolled out, the changes will apply to new meetings. These changes will not be applied to previously scheduled meetings.

A participants access to meeting chat will be dependent on how they were invited to the meeting:

• Who can see the chat for a single meeting?
  • People who are invited to the meeting or forwarded the meeting invitation after it is scheduled have access to the chat before, during, and after the meeting (up to the 1000-person limit).
  • People who are added to a meeting after it starts using the Invite someone field on the Participants pane (or are provided the meeting join coordinates in another way) will have access to the chat from the time they join to the time the meeting ends. They will not be able to see chat that takes place after the meeting ends.
• Who can see the meeting chat for a recurring meeting series?
  • People who are invited to the full series have access to the chat before, during, and after the meeting (up to the 1000-person limit).
  • People who are forwarded the invite of a single occurrence of the series or added to a meeting after it starts using the Invite someone field on the Participants pane (or are provided the meeting coordinates in another way) have access to the chat from the time they join to the time that meeting instance ends. They will not be able to see chat that takes place after the meeting ends.

Note: These changes do not impact channel meetings.

What you need to do to prepare:

You may consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.