Inviting external users to a Site

Question

<Split from this thread>

I'm also having problems sharing/sending invites to external users. They've checked spam, but no invite is received. very puzzling

Answer 1

Vincent,

this issue is perplexing. One user, who has a Microsoft account, just reported that he cannot access the sharepoint site. He gets this error message:

We're sorry, but useraccount can't be found in the **.sharepoint.com directory. Please try again later, while we try to automatically fix this for you.

So then I tried to re-invite this user, thinking that now they're in the microsoft user database now I can send an invite. But I'm getting the same behavior - 1) user does not receive invitation, 2) I don't receive a copy of the invite, 3) user does not appear in group even though I just added user, 4) invite that I just sent out does show up in the admin access request list.

Can you I try to share you to this site as an admin?

On a possibly related note, I tried to change the sharepoint URL name and was encountered a failure error - I was denied access. I am the company admin and the site admin.

Answer 2

Vincent

Based on the previous thread, I understood that there can be problems confirming that the invitation was ever sent. From my experience, it seems that if I do not also get a CC copy (actually, I get 2 CC copies), then the invitee also does not receive an invitation.

These external users who have not received an invitation (or at least have not accepted an invitation) have never visited the site or tried to log in, to my knowledge.

I have changed the settings on the site to allow people to request to be added..I'm hoping I can just direct them to the site where they can ask to be added.

Answer 3

Hi Deborah,

Only when external users accept the invitation and log into the shared site, will they be added to SharePoint group. Could you confirm whether the external users did so? Also, since 2 external users can accept the invite, it seems that only some users are still not able to receive the invitation email now. For the affected users, can you see the access request for them? Have they ever logging into the working team site? Are they able to logging into the shared site directly?

Additionaly, regarding your another concern about external users can invite other external users, you may disable their sharing ability by unchecking the feature of Allow members to invite others to the site memembers group.... Referrence:

https://community.office365.com/en-us/f/154/t/344970

Best Regards,

Vincent

Answer 4

Thank you Vincent:

1. Yes I have online Exchange (desktop and online). Only one invitation appeared out of 7. Have tried SEVERAL times to invite users, and I can see many, but not all requests in the history. Two users have accepted invite, but they did not appear in group Member list. Of these, when I re-sent invitation, ONE user showed up immediately in the group member list AND I received email. It's as if they are not being added properly to some pending database.
2. I am the admin. I can see some of the invitations, but not all of them. external users have always had access. I now accept requests and now external users can invite other external users.
3. until my success with the ONE external user, this was happening with all. I have tried sharing documents, inviting them to the Member group, adding them to a new Group... in each case, sharepoint looks like it's trying to do so something (pause), and then the member list updates, and only once did I see a change when one external user was added.
4. trying to share a site.. but also tried documents and folders. This problem seems to be true for all new sites I'm adding. Our company Team site seems to work OK for external file sharing.

Answer 5

Hi Deborah,

To narrow down this issue, could you let us know the following information?

1. Do you have Exchange Online license assigned? If yes, please verify if the invitation email appears in your Office 365 mailbox inbox folder.
2. If the site has manage access request feature enabled following this link, can you see the invitation in site settings > access requests and invitations? Contact your admin if you are not to see the result.
3. Does this issue happen to all external users? Can you email them directly to see if there are any issues in the mail delivery process? What about sharing with internal users?
4. What are you trying to share, a site, library/list or a folder? Does this issue happen to other site, library/list or folder?

Best Regads,

Vincent