Adding External Member to SharePoint Site

Question

I have someone in my organization who wishes to invite external users to be members of a SharePoint site.  She created the site and is listed as the "Owner".  She can add users within our domain as members, but when attempting to add an external e-mail address, she gets the message "Couldn't add <e-mail address> as a member."

I've been attempting to read online about how this is done and what might be preventing it.  I've check the settings at the tenant level and everywhere else that I've been directed and external sharing is allowed everywhere.  I don't see what would be preventing this.

This is the message when attempting to add the external user to the site:

What are we missing?

Thanks,

John G.

Answer 1

Hi John G,

I’m glad to be here and share my suggestion with you.

When you create a SharePoint Team site, it will create a corresponding Office 365 groups in Outlook. Admins and users can also create team sites in SharePoint, which creates an Office 365 group. For group-connected team sites, the group owners are added as site owners, and the group members are added as site members. In most cases, you'll want to share these sites by adding people to the Office 365 group. However, you can share only the site.

If you want to share a site with an external user, the only way you want them to be able to access the site is add guests to the group. So, you can click the Go to Outlook button.in the Outlook group, click Guest-> Add members to add the external user be a guest. Then you can add them as a member of site. Moreover, if you don’t want to share site with them, you can also remove them from site member. And check then in the Office 365 admin center-> Users-> Guest User to delete them.

For more information, you can refer to these articles:

Manage guest access in Office 365 Groups

External sharing overview

Thanks for your patience and supports for our product. 

Regards,

Ivy

Answer 2

Hi John G, 

Have you checked my reply?

Please feel free to contact us if you need further help.  

Regards,

Ivy

Answer 3

This seems to have solved my problem.  Thanks very much!

Answer 4

Hi John G,

Thanks for telling us this good news.We are glad that this problem has resolved now.

You’re welcome to post in our forum if you have any problem.

Regards,

Ivy

Answer 5

Thanks, I think this solves my issue too. 

We do not have Outlook active Online as yet so would make this the key.

Cheers

Paul