If Vinyl isn't joining your Microsoft Teams meetings, it may be due to how anonymous participants are handled in your organisation's Teams settings.
Vinyl joins meetings as an external (anonymous) participant, which means certain Teams policies can block it from entering unless configured correctly.
Anonymous users include:
People who aren't signed into Teams with a work account
External users from organisations that either:
Aren't listed in your trusted domains
Haven't configured mutual trust (your org trusts theirs, but not vice versa)
Vinyl joins as an anonymous guest that isn't signed into a Microsoft account, so your organisation needs to allow anonymous meeting join for Vinyl to get in.
How to Allow Anonymous Join for Meetings
As a Teams admin, you can allow anonymous users (like Vinyl) to join meetings by enabling a few key settings.
Go to the Teams admin center
Expand Meetings > Meeting settings
Scroll to Meeting Join and Lobby
Toggle Anonymous users can join a meeting → On
Click Save
This allows all users in your organisation to create meetings that allow anonymous access.
Microsoft sometimes moves anonymous join controls between the org-wide meeting settings and per-organiser meeting policies, so if you can't find this setting, Microsoft's own guide (linked at the bottom) has the latest steps.
If your organisation uses Teams Premium, you can also allow anonymous users to join after verifying via one-time passcode:
Use the per-organiser policy: Anonymous users can join a meeting after verifying
This requires the meeting organiser to have a Teams Premium licence
If your meeting attendees or organisers have external access disabled, users (including Vinyl) may be flagged as anonymous, even if domains are trusted.
Make sure both:
Your organisation allows external access
The other party's organisation does too
This ensures mutual trust and avoids blocked participants.
CAPTCHA verification checks blocking Vinyl
Microsoft Teams includes an admin policy that requires anonymous users and people from untrusted organisations to complete a CAPTCHA challenge before joining a meeting. This policy is designed to block automated web bots — but because Vinyl joins as an anonymous participant, it also cannot complete a CAPTCHA and will be blocked from joining if this setting is enabled.
If Vinyl consistently fails to join Teams meetings despite anonymous join being enabled, a Teams admin should check whether this verification check is turned on:
Go to the Teams admin center
Expand Meetings → select Meeting Policies
Open the relevant policy (or the org-wide default)
Navigate to the Meeting join & lobby section
Find Require a verification check from and confirm it is set to Not required
Click Save
Setting this to Not required means no CAPTCHA is enforced, and Vinyl will be able to join as normal. If your organisation needs CAPTCHA enabled for security reasons, note that it will prevent Vinyl (and any other external bot) from joining automatically — there is no way to exempt specific participants from this check.
Why Vinyl appears as "(Unverified)" in your meeting
You may notice Vinyl appears in your Teams meeting under your bot name followed by (Unverified), for example Vinyl Recorder (Unverified) if your firm uses the default name. This is expected and does not affect recording, Vinyl will still join and capture the meeting as normal.
The label Teams assigns depends on the relationship between the participant and your organisation's tenant:
(Unverified) — The participant is joining anonymously: either not signed into a Microsoft account, or signed in but without a trusted relationship with your tenant. This is how Vinyl appears.
(External) — The participant is signed into a Microsoft account and has an established trusted relationship with your tenant (their domain has been allowed via your External Access settings).
No label — The participant belongs to your own organisation's tenant.
Because Vinyl joins as an anonymous guest and isn't signed into a Microsoft account, the (Unverified) label is expected and can't be changed through External Access settings.
Profile pictures follow the same logic. Teams only displays a participant's profile picture (when their camera is off) if they have a trusted relationship with your tenant. Vinyl won't show a profile picture, this is expected.
You can also find more information here: Microsoft Docs – Manage external meetings and chat