External User - Invitation redemption failed

Question

Hello,

Our company is using Microsoft's external user feature to set up sharing folders in our SharePoint Online instance for our customers. Our security settings require them to be added to our Active Directory as an external user, upon which they will receive an email inviting them to either use an existing Microsoft account or create a new Microsoft account to access our SharePoint. Once in, we grant them permission to a specific folder and we're good to go.

So far, all of our customer partner users have been able to set up their accounts successfully with the occasional fixable user error here and there. However, for one of our customers, they are seeing the following error when they click the "Get Started" link in the email they receive after being added to Azure AD.

I have no idea why this is occurring. It happens when I click on the link as well, which is not true in other cases, leading me to believe there is something wrong with the invitation being generated.

Answer 1

Hi Nicholas,

You could let that user (An**a.B**le) try the following steps:

Open the invitation email>right-click Get Started button>Copy Hyperlink> open a private browser window>paste the hyperlink>see if she could get the sign in page and sign in with her account successfully.

If it doesn't work, as you mentioned the difference Cxxx.net and cxxx.net, please check if you are able to resend the invitation by use Cxxx.net. From that user side, check if she could receive the second invitation. If yes, use the method mentioned above to open the link in private window.

Regards,

Tim

Answer 2

1. We use the Azure Portal.
2. Yes, when they click the Get Started button in the invitation email, the browser opens and they directly get the error message without being asked for signing?
3. Yes. All partners access folders from the same 3 libraries. We have had other users successfully access those libraries. However, this error is occurring well before I would expect them to be able to access those folders.
4. See above. This is occurring before we even initiate the step to share the folders. They can't accept the invitation sent out when we add them to the Azure AD.
5. I can look into this. There is one user who has successfully accepted their invitation from the same organization, and the only difference I can see is that their domain name is capitalized where the others are not. So ******@Cxxxx.net vs ******@cxxxx.net. Could this be affecting it?

Thank you.

Answer 3

Hi Nicholas,

To better understand the situation, I'd like to confirm the following things:

1. Do you add external users accounts to your local AD or Office 365 portal (Azure AD)? For your tenant, do you sync your local AD to Azure AD?
2. Do you mean when they click the Get Started button in the invitation email, the browser opens and they directly get the error message without being asked for signing? Do they get the error message in their work environment (e.g. with the domain joined computers in their office)?
3. You mentioned you share folders to external users. For those external users who run into the issue, are they shared with a folder which in the same library/site as other external partners?
4. Create a test folder in the same library. Share it to those external users. See if they run into the same error.
5. From your side, could you find some differences for those external users who can and cannot access your SharePoint Online? For example, you find that external partner uses work/school account and Office 365 for Business services. But other external partner who can access don't use Office 365 for Business services. 

Best regards,

Tim