M365 Changelog: (Updated) New Lobby Policy for Webinar

MC550804 – Updated August 2, 2023: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Currently in Public webinars, you are unable to distinguish registered users in the lobby. This means that you cannot allow registered users to directly bypass your lobby and enter your webinar. With this new change, Microsoft will be offering two new lobby options that will allow you to better control security in your webinar. These new lobby options are:

• A new ‘Allow registered users to bypass’ lobby policy that allows registered users to bypass the lobby in your webinar.
• A new ‘Reject users who cannot bypass the lobby’ that rejects users who cannot bypass the lobby.

Both options are only available for Webinars. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 125881

When this will happen:

Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-May 2023 and expect to complete rollout by mid-August 2023 (previously late June).

How this will affect your organization:

With the two new lobby options, you can better control the security of your webinar.

View image in new tab

What you need to do to prepare:

While Microsoft recommends educating users in your organization about this new change, there is nothing you must do to receive this new update. These two new options will be available in the meeting options of your webinar and turned OFF by default. You may enable them to better manage your webinar at your discretion.