How to manage permissions in Microsoft Teams

If you use Microsoft Teams regularly, you are probably aware of the powerful capabilities the increasingly popular virtual teamwork platform holds.

We have shown 13 reasons why your team should consider using Microsoft Teams. Feel free to browse through our blog posts!

But as a user, however, you only witness a fraction of what the collaborative software can actually do. Could you imagine all the functionalities it could unlock if, instead of a regular user, you were the Megamind behind the cool machine with full access and control of the settings, configurations, and permissions? Limitless potential. 🤖 🦾 🤓

In this article, let’s focus on how to manage permissions in Microsoft Teams.

Roles

In Microsoft Teams, each team member has a role that determines their respective levels of access and permissions to the hub settings. From least to most permissions they are: guests, members, and owners.

Guests

Guests in Microsoft Teams have the least level of access. They are typically people outside of your organization that are invited (by the Team Owners) for occasional purposes, like a guest, a temporary collaboration with various partners, clients, or suppliers. Despite the limited permissions, guests can do quite a lot! They can:

• Create a channel;
• Take part in a private chat;
• Take part in a channel conversation;
• Share a channel file;
• Be invited to collaborate on a Microsoft 365 account;
• Edit posted messages;
• Delete posted messages.

Permissions for guests however can be adjusted at any point depending on your admin settings in SharePoint.

Members

Members of Microsoft Teams are the regular users or team members in your organization. In addition to what the guests can do above, members can also:

• Share files in a chat;
• Add apps, like tabs, bots, and connectors;
• Create a Team;
• Discover and join existing public Teams from their hub;
• View organizational chart.

Permissions for members however can be adjusted at any point depending on your admin settings in SharePoint.

Owners

Team Owners in Microsoft Teams are the ones who can manage most of the platform’s settings for the team. Multiple owners are possible within one team. In addition to what the members can do above, team owners can also:

• Add and remove guests;
• Add guests to a team;
• Add and remove members;
• Edit and delete a team;
• Archive and restore a team;
• Renew a team;
• Change the team picture;
• Set the team parameters and settings for channels, tabs, and connectors;
• Show channels automatically for the entire team;
• Control @mentions of team members’ names;
• Allow @channels and @mentions of team members’ names;
• Control usage of emojis, GIFs, and memes. 🥳 🎉😋⛱🏝😎

Team owners are in control of many settings and permission of their teams. How to manage permissions in Microsoft Teams is nothing complicated.

Go to the team name you are the owner of. Select More options. And select Manage Team.

From the tabs bar, select the Settings tab.

On the Settings page, is where you can manage permissions for your Microsoft Teams team. In there, you will be able to enable and disable all the options available for your team by checking or unchecking them.

Team picture

Upload a picture that represents the spirit of your team. You can also change it as often as you like.

Member permissions

Here, owners can turn on the ability for any member of your team to:

• Create and update channels;
• Create private channels;
• Delete and restore channels;
• Add and remove apps;
• Upload custom apps;
• Create, update and remove tabs;
• Create, update and remove connectors;
• Delete their own messages;
• Edit their own messages.

Guest permissions

Owners can let guests create, update and delete channels in a team.

@mentions

For mentions, team owners of Microsoft Teams get to choose which members are allowed to use the @team name and @channel name mentions. If you decide that they can use those mentions, it means that a notification will be sent to all team members every time the @mention (team and/or channel) is used. Enabling this option will be displayed as a possible option to your team members. Disabling this feature won’t show at all as a possibility to your team members.

Team code

Another way how to manage permissions in Microsoft Teams properly is to automatically generate a Team code for guests or other external occasional users to join the Team. Guests won’t be able to join your team without the code if not provided. Giving them a team code means guests can join the team directly. It also means that you won’t receive join requests.

Fun stuff

By checking and unchecking fun stuff details, owners get to police how much fun is allowed in their team. Striking a healthy balance between pleasant team culture and a productive team is what’s at stake here. We say go for it!

😀 😃 😄 😁 😆 😅 😂 🤣 😋 😛 😝 😜 🤪

But let’s not get carried away. ☠️

This means that your team members can or can’t use emojis, memes, GIFs, stickers, and custom fun stuff to be uploaded. The Giphy library may be unlocked and the inappropriate content can be filtered either strictly or moderately.

Tags

Tags let you quickly regroup members at once by categorizing a group of people by a specific attribute, say, “Project A”, “Nurses”, “designers” or “managers” to reach them more efficiently. On here, team owners can let themselves or along with their team members manage tags.

Edit a team

Editing a team is another feature of how to manage permissions in Microsoft Teams. As a team owner, you also have the additional options to change the team name, the team description, and set privacy settings. From the Microsoft Teams team page, select More Options, then Edit team.

To know more about permissions and settings in Microsoft Teams, visit their support page.

Shirley Tran

Shirley is a Vacation Tracker occasional contributor. She’s held a few positions in communications, marketing and copywriting. When she’s not at her laptop, you can find her daydreaming about her laptop and chasing the sun while people watching.