We Don't Have That Kind of Relationship

September 21, 2023 12:15 PM

My client added me as an external user to their MS Team, and now they are administering my settings. I do not want that.

Prologue: I work at a small company with a patchwork IT system. I am on Windows 10, and use MS Office products daily. I have a licensed Office 2016 Professional Plus account on my local machine. It is tied to my MS user account through my company.

A client added me (and a bunch of other consultants) to their MS Team and Sharepoint as an external user so we could collaborate. Since then, some strange things are happening. The client's logo appears at the top of my search bar in Windows. When I open Teams, I appear as [My Name] (guest), and in the Teams Accounts tab, I appear as only being a member of the client's org, not my company's. I tried signing out of Teams, but then I can't sign back in, getting error code caa20001. Most annoying of all, it seems like the client's IT policies have been applied to my Office settings. I can no longer enable macros on documents--the option to set them as trusted is no longer there.

If I go to https://myaccount.microsoft.com/organizations my home organization is correctly displayed as my company, and the client displays under "Other organizations you collaborate with". I have the option to leave their organization from that page, but I don't want to, I still need access to the Sharepoint and Teams group.

What's the deal? How can I convince MS that I really am just a guest in their org, and I really do belong to--and should be administered by--my org?

posted by agentofselection to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

While I don't have the answer besides talking to their IT, I wanted to commiserate and say that it's not you, it's Teams. I have seen a tightening of "security" with everyone I consult for and I have not found a way to work within their MS ecosystems without either a virtual PC on my Mac or a loaner computer from their company. That means none of your own settings, macros etc. You are either trusted and one of them or you are outside their network which doesn't allow access. Good luck, I'll be watching to see if anyone has a solution.
posted by Bunglegirl at 12:38 PM on September 21, 2023 [7 favorites]

When I work with clients to this level of interaction, they're expected to provide me a Windows login on their domain -- it's a pain in different ways but then they can have control over my account and I can have access to their domain.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:55 PM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

When you logged into Teams, did you leave the "Allow my organization to manage my device" box checked instead of logging into "This App Only"?

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msteams/forum/all/how-to-undo-allow-my-organization-to-manage-my/47acf09c-d17d-4571-8b41-dcd7376d34ee
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 12:58 PM on September 21, 2023 [8 favorites]

Mr. NSAID has it, I believe. It’s easy to mis-click and choose to give control to the other org.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 3:28 AM on September 22, 2023