External federated contacts don't appear in Teams search
If you import contacts from a federated partner tenant into Microsoft Entra ID or Exchange Online, the contacts might not appear when you search for them in Microsoft Teams.
The following requirements must be met for external federated contacts to appear in a search on Teams:
- Your mailbox must be hosted on Exchange Online, not in Microsoft Exchange Server on-premises.
- A phone number must be included in the contact information for every external federated contact.
- You must search for the external contact by email address, not by name.
Note
An external federated contact might appear in the search results if the contact's information is currently cached on your computer.
To identify the cause of the issue, an administrator can use one of the following methods to check the requirements for external federated contacts to be displayed in a search on Teams.
Method 1: Run a connectivity test
Teams administrators can run the Teams Federation and Interoperability connectivity test in the Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer tool. This tool is used to troubleshoot connectivity issues that affect Teams. The connectivity test checks whether a user account meets the requirements to search for and chat with an external federated account.
Note
The Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer tool isn't available for the GCC and GCC High Microsoft 365 Government environments.
Follow these steps:
- Open a web browser and navigate to the Teams Federation and Interoperability connectivity test.
- Sign in by using the credentials of a Teams administrator.
- Enter the SIP address of the affected Teams user.
- Enter the SIP address of the external federated contact.
- Select the app that the external federated contact is using.
- Enter the verification code that's displayed, and then select Verify.
- Select the checkbox to accept the terms of agreement, and then select Perform Test.
After the test is finished, the screen displays details about the checks that were performed and whether the test succeeded, failed, or was successful but displayed a few warnings. Select the provided links for more information about the warnings and failures and how to resolve them.
Method 2: Run a self-help diagnostic
If you're an administrator, you can run the Teams Federation diagnostic in the Microsoft 365 admin center to verify the requirements for a Teams user to communicate with an external federated user by using Teams.
Note
This feature isn't available for Microsoft 365 Government, Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet, or Microsoft 365 Germany.
Follow these steps:
Select the Run Tests button to populate the diagnostic in the Microsoft 365 admin center:
In the Provide the username or email of the user reporting this issue field, enter the email address of the affected Teams user.
In the What is the federated tenant's domain name field, enter the appropriate information, and then select Run Tests.
After the diagnostic is finished, select the provided links to resolve the issues that were found.