Why Microsoft Teams and OneDrive Permissions in your Organisation are Broken

Microsoft is moving to a more cohesive integration of its previously fragmented ecosystem. Issues in how the various systems coexist are still apparent. One issue, is related to how an organisation provisions its OneDrive permissions vs how ‘Chats’ work in Microsoft Teams.

Wouldn’t it feel weird if sharing a file in a chat doesn’t give access to those people in the chat? Well that is totally possible. Here is why.

If the OneDrive settings for the organisation are set to only allow people to share on a per person basis, this behaviour carries over into Teams chat, no matter what is selected in the add user dialogue.

Additionally, when sharing a file with a chat group for the first time if your organisation an additional file sharing permission drop down will appear on the file when it has uploaded and you will be required to click ‘apply’ to enable all those currently in the chat to see the file. Failure to do so will cause you to post the file and no one can access the file.

When adding a person to a chat, they WILL NOT receive access to any of the files and you will need to add them one by one permission wise in OneDrive.

I’ve reported this to Microsoft multiple times over the last 2 years. The response is that the issue lies with the organisations OneDrive settings. Whilst this maybe true, I believe there needs to be a technical solution for independent permissions at an org level between sharing from OneDrive direct or through a Teams chat.