How to initiate guest access for remote collaboration with Parsec for Teams

If you’re looking to enable temporary access for remote collaboration within your Parsec for Teams account, you’ve come to the right place.

Teams users can use the Guest Access feature instead of adding collaborators to their team permanently. Guest Access can also be used internally within your Teams tenant.

Guest invites allow one specific Parsec account to connect to one specific computer. Invites can be sent from the Guest Access page within the Teams dashboard.

Through the Guest Access feature you can schedule a time window, up to five days, during which a guest can connect to a dedicated machine. When you create the invite the guest receives an email containing:

• An invite message
• An explanation how Parsec works
• The time window during which they can connect
• The link they will use to connect
• A configurable message from you
• 15 minutes before the invite becomes valid the guest receives a reminder window

In order for computers to be available for guest access, each computer will need to have Allow Guest Access enabled.

Team computers

Computers configured as Team Computers with Guest Access enabled show here. Guest Access-enabled Team Computers are shared among all administrators and guest access coordinators.

As of January 2023, Guest Access no longer allows users consuming a guest access token to connect to a computer provisioned as a “My Computer”. Users consuming guest access tokens must connect to a computer that is provisioned as a Team Computer.

WARNING: If you log out or switch accounts after an invite is sent, but before it’s used, the invite becomes unusable. To make sure the correct account is logged in to Parsec, it’s safest to only schedule invites for online computers.

• Navigate to the Team Computers tab
• Find the relevant computer(s)
• Click icon under Guest Access and ensure it says “ON”

• Click the Guest Access tab.
• Ensure the desired computer(s) appear.

Each guest invite has the following requirements:

Emails

Who is the invite for? Invites are one user to one computer, but you can enter multiple emails at once if they should have simultaneous access to the computer, which will result in multiple invites. Only the Parsec account(s) with matching emails will be able to use the invite.

Schedule

The time window during which the guest can connect to the computer. An invite can be valid for a maximum of 5 days. During this time window the invite can be used multiple times. Once the time window expires the guest is automatically kicked.

The time window is set in the selected time zone. This time zone is also used when communicating the time window to the guest.

The end time can be updated any time, the start time can be updated until a guest has used the link. When updating the time window an email will automatically be sent to the guest notifying them of the change.

Permissions

Permissions determine what peripherals the guest will be able to use when connected to the computer. Permissions can be edited at any time but if the guest is already connected updated permissions will not apply until the guest disconnects and reconnects.

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