External Sharing (again!)

Question

SharePoint - why now do some of my external authorised people get a "That didn't work" message telling them that their email address can't be found in our SharePoint Directory, despite them previously having no problem accessing documents and folders shared with them as 'Guests'..?

Sometimes the document will actually load on their page for a few seconds and then the "Sign in is not complete" message appears on the open tab suggesting they "sign in with a different account to this site"... Why should they have to sign out on a browser to access a 'guest' link with no restrictions? This is on Edge (where it defaults to on their systems).

Incidentally, before they changed the sharing system, we started to add individual emails to our 'Guest List' so that we could keep a check on who was accessing which document, but since MS decided to stop that and just allow links for 'Everyone' we only know that a 'Guest' has accessed something - this is a massive annoyance. (Also what on earth is a 'Microsoft Flow Free' license??? - we appear to have a thousand of those for some reason)

Answer 1

Hi Brian,

We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused by it.

After several tests, we can encounter the error message provided in the screenshot of your previous reply, when we delete the external user from Site Collection. So, we suggest you check whether the external user (with specific problem) are listed under People and Groups > All People.

---

To access that page, simply paste _layouts/15/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0in the URL after your site name.

For example:

https://tenantname.sharepoint.com/sites/sitename/\_layouts/15/people.aspx?MembershipGroupId=0

If the external user is not present, can you please share the documents or files again to external user and check whether they can access the shared documents or files without any problem.

For your second query about some of the external users are having Microsoft Flow Free license, we request you post this in a new thread as our moderators will assist you to overcome it. (we asked you this because to avoid from misunderstanding and keeping the thread clear)

Please let us know for moving forward.

Thanks,

Chitrahaas

Answer 2

Right, even though the admin centres have changed their look and location, I can normally work these kind of things out.

So far I have deleted the email addresses from the directorys, but when trying to enable the SharePoint Online Management Shell, I constantly get the message:

Connect-SPOService : Could not connect to SharePoint Online.

At line:4 char:1

• Connect-SPOService -Url https://$orgName-admin.sharepoint.com -Creden ...

    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Connect-SPOService], InvalidOperationException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.InvalidOperationException,Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell.ConnectSPOService

I am a Global Administrator, I have tried my 'official' work email and also the one ending in onmicrosoft.com but I get the same error. I am quite confident my password is correct, but I don't know for definite what the official company $orgName might have been set up as - I have tried many combinations, but I doubt that this makes too much difference in any case?

Looking at the SharePoint sharing options, they have changed (again) slightly. The people we work with use various accounts since they are admin operatives within educational sites - they don't want to be messing about with making sure they are signed on as the correct email etc. Just click the link, add documents to folders and adjust the main spreadsheet - hardly rocket science. 

I still have other 'Guest' emails on the system (where their sign-on credentials include the #EXT# prefix) and they can still access their folders and I am informed when they do. A couple of others have been given 'Microsoft Flow Free' licenses but they can see folders in documents within the SharePoint that we don't want them to access - I don't seem to be able to lock them to just one folder.

I now wonder whether I should start this all over again and give each site (building) their own SharePoint which contains only their own documents, and issue them a log-in from 'Microsoft Flow Free' (which means I need to give them a new email generated from our domain)? This is not ideal, but if it is the only way forward I will have to sort it out.

Answer 3

Hi Brian,

Thanks for writing back and providing the screenshot of error message encountered.

In the above reply, we suggested you share your documents to external users with permission Specific People to know which external users has edited the document.

Coming to the error provided, we suggest you follow the steps provided by Joanne Li MSFT in the following thread with similar issue. After trying the steps, please let us know the result.

Thanks,

Chitrahaas

Answer 4

Sorry, I dont quite understand everything you have written. I want selected people in my sites (buildings) to access folders and documents within a SharePoint site, to alter a spreadsheet. I want to be able to give them one link and then access everything in their folder. 

It would be nice if they could add the link to their browser and it worked after more than a week. (Currently they cannot even save it to favourites, the link only appeared to stay stable via email - now some get the attached message).

Answer 5

Hi Brian,

We’re sorry for the any inconvenience caused by it.

When you share the documents to the users in External organization with permission Anyone with this link can edit, and when the user with link edits the document, it will be appeared Guest User (which is expected because users with this link doesn’t need to enter their account info).

If you share with users in External organization with sharing permission Specific people, and if the user with link try to edit the document shared, you can see the name of the user who edits. (Because the user with Specific people permission should enter the passcode send to them to access the document). So, we suggest you share the documents or files with permission Specific people.

For your other query, can you please provide the screenshot of the error message encountered at external users end and let us know the permission given to them for moving further.

Thanks,

Chitrahaas