How to Send Office 365 SharePoint Alerts to External Email Addresses

Question

I'm using a Guest Link to allow an external user to update information in a SharePoint folder.  I'd like that user to be able to get SharePoint Alerts so that they know when I've made a change.  When I put an external (like .gmail.com) address in, SharePoint says its not in the organization. 

How can I send an alert outside of my organization?

(I've seen one post that looks like this, but the replies wouldn't expand.  Another person suggested sending it to myself and putting a rule in to forward it to the other person.)

Answer 1

Hi PeteVan,

We can only send SharePoint Alerts to the users that already exist in the tenant including external users. So, I would suggest you share the folder to the external user and require him/her to sign in. After he/she sign into the tenant, his/her account will appear in Office 365 admin center as User_gmail.com#EXT#@contoso.onmicrosoft.com. After that, you can create Alerts on the external user’s account.

Thanks,

Ran

Answer 2

I was able to get this to work.  A client wanted to have a kind of subscription, where -- when a price list was uploaded or updated -- an email alert would be sent to the customers' email.  That works nicely once you share the parent folder with the list of external users (and those users respond by signing in with either a Microsoft Account or an Office 365 user account).

So far so good.  But, when I go back into the folder, to update the "Alert me when items change..." area, I only see my own Office 365 username; I don't see any of the other external users email addresses I have previously added.  This is more of a "maintenance problem," but it would be nice to see who's already "subscribed."