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Here is a quick 'how to' for adding external users to a Small Business P1 SharePoint. I have finally gotten this to work, so I thought I would share my experiences.
It seems that it is true, only real Hotmail and live.com address will work. I have tried many non-Hotmail 'windows live' linked IDs and none of them worked! So be aware of this major limitation. Some of your external users will be forced into creating new Hotmail/live accounts! (The steps below have been heavily edited to reflect new information gleaned from Sarah’s video -Mike)
First, you must plan what limitations you want for your external users. Do you want them to have access to your entire team site, or just a sub-site? In my case, I wanted the external users to only be able to access a particular sub-site for collaboration. The next step is to create a sub-site by clicking Site actions -> New Site and then selecting the most appropriate template for your expected usage.
Once the sub-site is created, you need to create a user group for your external users giving that group unique restrictions. Select your target sub-site and select Site Actions -> Site Settings, and then Site Permissions. Click ‘Create Group’ and go through the settings, paying special attention to the ‘group permissions’ section. Here is where you enforce your restrictions over your external users and their permission level.
By creating the group in the target sub-site, you effectively prevent the members of this group from being able to access or even see any other sections of the SharePoint.
Now comes an important step. You need to set this new group as the ‘Default Group’ for the sub-site, which will save considerable steps/time later. To do this, select Site Actions -> Site Settings, then ‘People and Groups’. In the left column you will see your newly created group; select it. Now, drop down ‘Settings’ and select ‘Make Default Group’.
From still within your target sub-site, select Site Actions -> Share Site. You can now see two fields for entering external users’ e-mail addresses. The first field is the Visitor’s group and the second field, normally the Member’s group, should now be changed to the newly created group you set as default in the previous step. Here you can simply add the external user's Hotmail/Live address into the field, and click ‘Share’. Be warned, only real Hotmail/Live address will work!
An invitation will be sent to the address, and the external user must click on the embedded link to accept. They will be sent to a login page where they input their Hotmail/Live credentials. Once inputted, they will be allowed access to your sub-site. Easy!
Encourage your external users to bookmark the sub-site since this method will actually prevent them from coming through the “Member Login’ on your public website, because their group has not been given access to the ‘teamsite’. Members of the group you created will only be able to access the sub-site you expressly designated, giving a great level of control over your external users.
Once the external user has been validated on your system, you can add them to additional groups to give them additional access privileges. No further invites are necessary for that external user; however you will need to provide them with the sub-site URL to directly access.
Please let me know if there are other ways of doing this or streamlining the process. Thanks!
15 out of 15 people found this post helpful.
Hi HK Mike,
That is a really wonderful, informative, and extremely helpful walk-through! Thank you for posting this!
Did you have anything else to add HK Mike?
If I were to add, I think I would mention improvement suggestions:
I would prefer that external users could be validated somehow without having to have a Hotmail account.
Lastly, from another post of mine, I still can't access my website, nor my SharePoint, from neither a WP7 nor an iPhone. This has caused considerable problems for me; the CFO cannot get into the SharePoint from his iPhone, and I take the heat. Not cool.
Additionally, the lack of website visitor analytics was a big problem, but we finally discovered a hack to add Google Analytics, so all good now.
Other than that, so far so good. I do expect considerably more improvements before we have to actually start paying for the service, so your clock is ticking!
(Edited to reflect new information -Mike)
I have edited this post as it has become irrelevant in light of edits made to the tutorial(Which is a good thing).
I would like to give a +1 to make it that external users could be validated without having to have a Hotmail account.
This is not something one should have to force upon clients... as it stands I have only one client on a sharepoint site and whilst I can move existing clients over to sharepoint I don't like the thought of having to tell prospective clients that they have to use a hotmail account...(it could set a bad tone)
John
(Original post
Thanks for this. I have been looking at this issue for a while and getting irritated at the lack of documentation.
Regarding the issue of external users being added to the 'Visitors' or 'Members' group and then having to be moved to the 'newly created group' ; would it work to switch the permissions of the 'Members' group and the 'newly created group'?
Just a suggestion, I haven't tried it.
John )
HK,
Analytics are available, they just don't seem to have a link to them anywhere. read this from another post, it works in any area, not just the website, you can add that to the end of teamsite to see what is getting used.
Do you mean you want to check the “Web Analytics Reports”?
If so, please append the “/_layouts/usage.aspx” to the end of your web site, thus, you will see the usage of the web site.
Thanks,
Kylin Yang.
That is from this thread.
http://community.office365.com/en-us/f/154/p/7911/33558.aspx#33558
Hope this helps
Robert
Great tutorial. Have you tried applying to the Office 365 Grid? I think you would be a great asset to our elite community.
You can apply here - community.office365.com/.../gridlearnmore.aspx
There's also this really easy step-by-step tutorial video that shows exactly How to Add External Users in Sharepoint. A lot of forums miss a critical step necessary for adding external users to your site. Check out this video for step-by-step instructions.
Hope this helps!
This is nice Sarah; however it is not for Small Business Office 365 SharePoint Online (P1). This is a critical difference that most tutorials miss. These instructions do not apply at all.
Hi Robert
I have looked at these analytics, and compared to third party tools such as GA, they are seriously lacking. Even the most basic and critical questions such as ‘what keywords are visitors using to search for my site’ cannot be answered here.
With the hack developed by Jean-Marc – neopartner, community.office365.com/.../22579.aspx all the power of GA is available for in depth analysis of your visitors for free.
Yes I think that would work, however the drawback is that there are only two groups available for external users to be added to; Visitors and Members. Depending on the complexity of your SharePoint, these two groups might get used very quickly, and then you would be stuck.
Thank you everyone for all of the great information!
Was there anything else to add regarding this topic?
I just did a major re-write to include setting the 'default group'. Hope it is easier now.
Hi again
I used the tutorial steps and they worked fine(thanks again for the tutorial HK Mike); but I am wondering is it possible to hide the site structure/navigation from external users.
i.e. The 'Navigate up' button near the top left of the screen shows some info.
Example: Your site structure is 'TeamSite/Clients/Client-1/Client-1a'.
When an external user of sub-site 'Client-1a' clicks the 'Navigate up' button they can see names of all the sites that are hierarchically above even though they can't access them.