Apps in External Scenarios

Apps will now be available for use in external meetings and chats. Users from the host organization (the user who creates a meeting or group chat) can install, update and delete apps. External users (belonging to other organizations) invited to the meeting or chat will be able to interact with only the apps host users install.

Key points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 83094
• Timing: We will begin rolling this out in early June
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Control type: admin control
• Action: review and assess

How this will affect your organization

External access (managed in the Manage Apps page) is an existing feature that allows your Teams and Skype for Business users to communicate with other users who are from outside of your organization.

Now, with the launch of apps in external meetings and chats, your users can add apps when they host meetings/chats with other organizations, and they can use apps shared by external users when your users join meetings/chats hosted by other organizations.

This feature will be made available in chats/meetings for your users with all domains, and if you have enabled specific domains, the feature will be available for those domains that you have already enabled external access with from the Manage Access page. In all such scenarios, the data policies of the host organization (creating/hosting a meeting or chat) will be honored and the data sharing practices of the third-party apps will be in effect.

Note: This rollout of external meetings and chats will not change any previous organizational settings. All legacy settings will be honored.

What you need to do to prepare

If your organization chooses to disable apps in external (federated) scenarios, you can to opt-out of this feature from the Manage External Access page.

Learn more: Manage external access in Microsoft Teams.

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.