Meeting policy settings - Participants & guests
These settings control which meeting participants wait in the lobby before they are admitted to the meeting and the level of participation they are allowed in a meeting.
- Let anonymous people start a meeting
- Automatically admit people
- Allow dial-in users to bypass the lobby
- Live captions
- Chat in meetings
Note
Options to join a meeting will vary, depending on the settings for each Teams group, and the connection method. If your group has audio conferencing, and uses it to connect, see Audio Conferencing. If your Teams group doesn't have audio conferencing, refer to Join a meeting in Teams.
Let anonymous people start a meeting
This setting is a per-organizer policy that allows for leaderless dial-in conferencing meetings. This setting controls whether dial-in users can join the meeting without an authenticated user from the organization in attendance. By default, this setting is turned off, which means dial-in users will wait in the lobby until an authenticated user from the organization joins the meeting.
Note
If this setting is turned off and a dial-in user joins the meeting first and is placed in the lobby, an organization user must join the meeting with a Teams client to admit the user from the lobby. There are no lobby controls available for dialed in users.
Automatically admit people
This is a per-organizer policy. This setting controls whether people join a meeting directly or wait in the lobby until they are admitted by an authenticated user. This setting does not apply to dial-in users.
Meeting organizers can click Meeting Options in the meeting invitation to change this setting for each meeting they schedule.
Note
In the meeting options the setting is labeled "Who can bypass the lobby". If you change the default setting for any user, it will apply to all new meetings organized by that user and any prior meetings where the user didn't modify Meeting options.
| Setting value | Join behavior |
|---|---|
| Everyone | All meeting participants join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. This includes authenticated users, external users from trusted organizations (federated), guests, and anonymous users. |
| People in my organization and guests | Authenticated users within the organization, including guest users, join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. Users from trusted organizations, and anonymous users wait in the lobby. This is the default setting. |
| People in my organization, trusted organizations, and guests | Authenticated users within the organization, including guest users and the users from trusted organizations, join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. Anonymous users wait in the lobby. |
| People in my organization | Authenticated users from within the organization join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. Users from trusted organizations, guest users, and anonymous users wait in the lobby. |
| Organizer only | Only meeting organizers can join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. Everyone else, including authenticated users within the organization, guest users, users from trusted organizations, and anonymous users must wait in the lobby. On the Teams client meeting options page, it appears as "Only me". |
| Invited users only | Only invited users and meeting organizers can join the meeting directly without waiting in the lobby. Everyone else, including authenticated users within the organization, guest users, users from trusted organizations, and anonymous users must wait in the lobby. On the Teams client meeting options page, it appears as "People I invite". Users added as a part of a distribution group will have to go through the lobby. |
Note
Trusted organizations are domains that you allow federated communications with in Teams. If you enable Allow all external domains for external access in the Teams admin center, any authenticated user within any Teams organization will be trusted. If you choose to specify external domains that are allowed and block all others, the allowed domains become trusted organizations. Any blocked domain is considered to not be a trusted organization.
Allow dial-in users to bypass the lobby
This is a per-organizer policy. This setting controls whether people who dial in by phone join the meeting directly or wait in the lobby regardless of the Automatically admit people setting. By default, this setting is turned off. When this setting is turned off, dial-in users will wait in the lobby until an organization user joins the meeting with a Teams client and admits them. When this setting is turned on, dial-in users will automatically join the meeting when an organization user joins the meeting.
Note
If a dial-in user joins a meeting before an organization user joins the meeting, they will be placed in the lobby until an organization user joins the meeting using a Teams client and admits them. If you change the default setting for any user, it will apply to all new meetings organized by that user and any prior meetings where the user didn't modify Meeting options.
Live captions
This setting is a per-user policy and applies during a meeting. This setting controls whether the Turn on live captions option is available for the user to turn on and turn off live captions in meetings that the user attends.
| Setting value | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Disabled but the user can override | Live captions aren't automatically turned on for the user during a meeting. The user sees the Turn on live captions option in the overflow (...) menu to turn them on. This is the default setting. |
| Disabled | Live captions are disabled for the user during a meeting. The user doesn't have the option to turn them on. |
Chat in meetings
This setting is a per-participant setting. This setting controls whether meeting chat is allowed in the user's meeting.