Slides of my session at the Microsoft 365 UK User Group meetup that I delivered on the 13th of July. In the session I gave an overview of Shared channels in Microsoft Teams from both the end user point of view and the admin point of view.

1. Shared Channels in Microsoft Teams,
an overview
Juan Carlos Gonzalez | Office Apps & Services MVP |
M365 SME & Delivery Manager
Sponsored by
Microsoft Teams Microsoft Tech Community

2. @jcgm1978
jcgonzalezmartin1978@hotmail.com
https://nl.linkedin.com/in/juagon
https://jcgonzalezmartin.wordpress.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTTOig92q
M_d0kLbSODCATw

3. Agenda
• Channels in Microsoft Teams: Basic concepts and channel types
• Shared channels specifics
• Shared channels: Looking under the hood!
• Shared channels FAQs
• Summary

4. Channels in Microsoft Teams: Basic concepts &
channel types
• A channel in Microsoft Teams is the key building
block that enables collaboration withing an
organization and with other organizations
• Every channel provides the following main features:
 Channel messages
 Files management
 Apps (Tabs)
 Connectors

5. Channels in Microsoft Teams: Basic concepts &
channel types
• Shared Channels: Collaborate seamlessly across team
& organization boundaries:
 No tenant switching
 Avoid over sharing
 Reduce team proliferation
 Inherit team membership
• As happens with Private Channels, a Shared Channel
comes with its own SharePoint Online Site Collection
• External users can be added to Shared Channels
without being guests in the host tenant
Teams
Standard
Channel
Open collaboration
within the team
Inherits full membership
list from the team
Private
Channel
Focused private
collaboration within
the team
Managed subset of
members from team
Shared
Channel
Flexible
collaboration within
& across orgs
Managed set of
individuals within or
outside of team or
tenant

6. Channels in Microsoft Teams: Basic concepts &
channel types
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/microsoftteams/teams-channels-overview

7. Channels in Microsoft Teams: Basic concepts &
channel types

8. Shared Channels specifics: Shared Channels and
Teams owners
• Only team owners can create shared channels
• Team owners can see the name and
description of all shared channels in a team
without being a member
• Team owners can delete shared channels
without being a member
• Only team owners can accept Share with
team invites
• Team owners can terminate sharing
relationship with shared channels from other
teams
• Shared channels inherit labels from the team
on creation

9. Shared Channels specifics: Shared Channels and
Teams owners
• Channels owners manage
the membership and life cycle
• Last owner of a shared channel cannot be
removed from the team
• If a shared channel becomes ownerless
(user leaves company), an existing in-tenant
member is auto-promoted
• Shared channels inherit settings from the
team on creation
• Settings can be changed at channel level

10. Shared Channels specifics: Sharing a shared
channel
• Share with people
 In-tenant members
 External tenant members
• Share with team:
 Host team
 In-tenant teams
 External tenant teams

11. Shared Channels specifics: Limits for shared
channels
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/microsoftteams/shared-channels
• The following limitations also apply:
 Shared channels support tabs except for
Stream, Planner, and Forms
 LOB apps, bots, connectors, and message
extensions are not supported
 When you create a team from an existing
team, any shared channels in the existing
team won't be copied over
 Notifications from shared channels are not
included in missed activity emails

12. Demo #1: A first look to a
Shared Channel in Microsoft
Teams

13. Shared Channels under the hood: Teams admin
settings
• Per-user policy for creation of shared
channels. Default On
• Per-user policy for who can initiate/accept
external sharing. Requires B2B direct connect
to be configured
• Manage channel lifecycle – create on behalf
of, update, delete
• Manage members – add/remove,
promote/demote
• External Access: 1-1 Chat, calls and meetings
among cross tenant users
• PowerShell & Graph API support

14. Shared Channels under the hood: Azure AD B2B
direct connect
New way to collaborate with people from other Azure AD orgs
Search for people from other Azure AD orgs (via email address)
Share Apps and other resources
Empowers Teams to share channels without switching tenants or having another account
External annotation

15. Shared Channels under the hood: Azure AD B2B
direct connect
• B2B direct connect is default off
• Inbound Access - Applies to users from
external tenants signing into your tenant
• Outbound Access- Applies to users in your
tenant signing into external tenants.
• Granular control for allowing/blocking access
at tenant, user/group and app level
• Controls that allow you to trust claims from
external tenants, for e.g. trust MFA, trust
compliant devices claims

16. Shared Channels under the hood: SharePoint
integration
• Each shared channel backed by a dedicated
SharePoint site collection
• Custom template ID TEAMCHANNEL#1
• No default channel folder in the document
library
• Host tenant users can share with any
member user within your tenant
• External users can seamlessly access Shared
Channel site via B2B direct connect
• External users can share the file with
members of the channel
• Channel sites can be managed from the
modern SPO Admin Center

17. Shared Channels under the hood: Compliance
• Host compliance policies apply when a channel is shared with other tenants
• Team continues to be the unit of management. Channel inherits team sensitivity label & geo
• eDiscovery – channel messages in dedicated mailbox, team eDiscovery search includes all associated SharePoint
sites for channels in team
• Legal Hold – Only host tenant members can be put on legal hold
• Information Barriers – Applies to host tenant members
• Monitoring & Auditing – Teams audit logs & AAD sign-in logs available
• Retention & DLP – Policy applied on the team will apply to all shared channels in the team
• Communication compliance – Supported on shared channels

18. Demo #2: Shared Channels
under the hood

19. Shared Channels FAQs
• It’s not possible to convert existing channels into shared channels. The other way around is also true: A shared
channel cannot be converted into a standard or private one
• Channel members will not, by default, added as a meeting participants in meetings scheduled in a Shared
channel
• Apps must be installed in the team before they can be used in a shared channel
• Certain Microsoft 365 group connected apps such as Planner coming later

20. Summary
• Shared channels are designed to enable seamless collaboration with inernal an external partners
• Shared channels are flexible: no guest accounts are required for external collaboration
• Shared channels are governed at two levels: Teams Admin Center vs. Azure AD Admin Center
• Shared channels collaboration model is built on top of Azure AD Direct Connect. By default, Azure AD B2B Direct
Connect is blocked and the recommendation is to enable external collaboration on a per tenant basics
• Host tenant and team policies apply to all channel members

21. Bonus: Quick References + Roadmap
• Overview of teams and channels in Microsoft Teams:
 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-channels-
overview?WT.mc_id=M365-MVP-4015732

• Shared channels in Microsoft Teams:
 https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/shared-channels?WT.mc_id=M365-
MVP-4015732

22. Bonus: Quick References + Roadmap

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25. Questions?