Microsoft Teams is a great screen sharing tool for collaboration and support (once you can successfully log into the correct organization). However, a change made to the default policy settings a little while ago has meant that External Meeting Participants (anyone from outside of the organization) are unable to request or take control.

If you have ever had to “drive” someone through a complex set of steps when they are unfamiliar with the application’s interface, you will know that this makes support time consuming and very frustrating.

I recently was able to find the setting that needed to be changed in an organization that I am administrator for and so am publishing the steps to help other administrators fix this setting. I know that it was changed to make systems more secure, but it makes support so unmanageable that users will revert to other tools to allow control (which is probably less secure than allowing external control via Teams with the permission of the user inside the organization).

Here are the steps to change the setting:

1. You will need to be an Administrator for the Organization to have access to the Admin app.
2. Log into Microsoft 365 (https://www.microsoft365.com/) or Outlook (https://outlook.office365.com/) and click on the 9 dots menu and select the Admin App.
3. In the left-hand pane, click the … Show all option.
4. Scroll down and click on Teams to get to the Microsoft Teams Admin Center (https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/dashboard).
5. On the left-hand pane, hover over the calendar icon for Meetings and select Meeting policies (https://admin.teams.microsoft.com/policies/meetings).
6. Click on the Global (Ord-wide default) policy.
7. Scroll down to the Content Sharing section.
8. Ensure that the External Participants can give or request control option is enabled.
9. Click Save. It can take a few minutes for the setting to become active.

[Edit] There are also meeting preferences which has defaults values, which need to be checked and updated, if necessary.

Here are the steps to change this preference:

1. You will need to be an Administrator for the Organization to have access to the Teams Settings section.
2. Log into Teams using the app or the website (https://teams.microsoft.com/v2/).
3. If you are an administrator, you should be able to click on the Admin section in the left pane.
4. Expand the Settings section and click on Meetings.
5. Ensure that the Allow a participant to give or request control option in enabled.
6. Click Save. It can take a few minutes for the setting to become active.

Note: I would also recommend enabling the Allow transcription option if it is not enabled.

Please ensure your organization administrator has enabled this setting before inviting someone to help support or mentor you via Microsoft Teams.

Good luck.

David

20-Jan-2026: Updated with addition meeting preferences setting to check/change.

This article was originally posted on http://www.winthropdc.com/blog.