Guest Access for Microsoft Teams gets delayed

A crucial feature that’s missing on Microsoft’s Slack competitor, Teams, is support for Guest Access. When Microsoft announced the General Availablity of Microsoft Teams, the company stated that it’ll be adding Guest Access to the service in late June. We are almost nearing the end of June, and Microsoft is yet to provide an official update on the Guest Access feature. So as per usual, I reached out to the good folks at Microsoft for an update on the Guest Access feature

As you may have already expected, Redmond is delaying the Guest Access feature for Microsoft Teams. In a statement to MSPU, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that the feature will take a “bit longer” to arrive as the company is currently working on ensuring a “secure and seamless experience” for users.

“When we announced general availability of Teams, we said we were targeting to deliver Guest Access in June, but it’s going to take a bit longer as we ensure a secure and seamless experience for customers.”

Guest Access certainly isn’t a deal breaker for services like Microsoft Teams for the most part, but it is still a crucial feature that a lot of big teams are using on services like Slack. At the end of the day, Microsoft delaying Guest Access wasn’t unexpected — that’s mostly because the company probably had to figure out a system for guest accounts that works seamlessly with the Office 365 accounts. Plus, Microsoft will also need to implement a whole range of different permissions that will be available to guests on a team and all of this is likely causing the delay.