SharePoint Online provides the tools to share content with external users. In this session, we are going to explore what does Microsoft mean by an external user, What are the options for sharing content with external users and how to define an external sharing strategy.
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SharePoint Online External Users Defined in Office 365 Saturday Europe 2013 on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/channels/o365eu13/111821951
Sources:What is an external user? - SharePoint Online for enterprises - Office.com http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/what-is-an-external-user-HA104036809.aspxShare sites or documents with people outside your organization - SharePoint Online for enterprises - Office.com http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/share-sites-or-documents-with-people-outside-your-organization-HA102894713.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA104036809Share sites or documents with people outside your organization - SharePoint Online for enterprises - Office.com http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/share-sites-or-documents-with-people-outside-your-organization-HA102894713.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA104036809
External users can use Office Web Apps for viewing and editing documents. If your plan includes Office Pro Plus, they will not have the licenses to install the desktop version of Office on their own computers.External users inherit the use rights of the Office 365 customer who is inviting them to collaborate on a site.An external user can perform tasks on a site consistent with the permission level that they are assigned.External users will be able to see other types of content on sites.
External users cannot create their own personal sites (what used to be referred to as My Sites). This means that they do not have their own SkyDrive Pro document library.External users cannot see the company-wide newsfeed. They also cannot edit their own profile, change their photo, or see aggregated tasks.External users do not add quota to the overall tenant storage pool (this is determined by licensed users only).External users cannot be an administrator for a site collection.By default, external users cannot access the Search Center and will not be able to execute searches against “everything.”
You can share an entire site by inviting external users to sign in to your site using a Microsoft account or a Microsoft Office 365 user ID.You can share individual documents by inviting external users to sign in to your site using a Microsoft account or a Microsoft Office 365 user ID.You can send users a guest link that they can use to view individual documents on your site anonymously.
In what sites or site collections you want external sharing enabled. You, as admin, can control this.What people in your organization will have permission to share sites or documents with external users.Who you want to invite as an external user.If you want to avoid having external users gain access to important or sensitive content on your Team site, you should create a subsite of your Team site that has unique permissions, and then share only that subsite with external users.
If you’ve shared an entire site with a user, then that user will be able to log in to the site and function like a full member of the site. They will be able to browse, search for, view, and edit content (depending on which permission group you assign them to). They will be able to do things like see the names of other site users in the People Picker or view document metadata. External users will also appear in the People Picker as site users. This means that other people who use your site could grant different permissions to these users than you initially granted when you shared the site with them. Be sure you know the identity of external users before you invite them to your site.If you share documents using anonymous guest links, then it is possible for invitation recipients to share those guest links with others, who could use them to view content. Do not use guest links to share documents that are sensitive. If you want to minimize the risk that someone might share an anonymous link, share a document by requiring sign-in instead.When considering if and how you want to share content externally, think about the following:To whom do you want to grant access to content on your Team site and any subsites, and what do you want them to be able to do?To whom in your organization do you want to grant permission to share content externally?Is there content you want to ensure is never available to be viewed by people external to your organization?
See who has access to a specific site or documentYou can also use the Share command to quickly see the list of people a document has been shared with.Do one of the following:To see who has access to a site, click Share at the top right of the page, and then click the link after Shared with in the Share dialog box to view a list of people who have access to the site.To see who has access to a document, folder, or Document Set, select the item in the document library, and then flick Shared With on the Files tab. TOP OF PAGEWithdraw invitationsIf you want to withdraw an invitation you have sent to an external user, you can revoke the invitation before it is accepted.Go to the site on which you want to withdraw an invitation.Go to Settings > Site Settings.Under Users and Permissions, click Access requests and invitations.Under External User Invitations, find the person you would like to uninvited to the site and click Open Menu.In the properties window, click Withdraw.If the external user has already accepted an invitation, and you want to remove them from your site, you can do so by removing them from the SharePoint permissions group to which you assigned them. The person in your organization who has permissions as the Office 365 admin or SharePoint Online admin may also remove them from the list of users for your environment. For more information, see the articles listed in the Manage external sharing section.