Forum Discussion
Best practice for external sharing: Document Library vs Folder
Hello,
I'd like to start a discussion to learn about your point of view regarding best practices for sharing content with external users. I'm currently faced with the following scenario and que...
Here are a few things that make libraries a better choice
- Doc libraries provide a search boundary that folders do not, i.e., you can limit a search to a library, you can't do this with a folder
- you can create custom views in each doc library, Folders only exist in one specific hierarchy, views provide many more options for display
- you can activate different content types in each library
- Different settings can be enabled/disabled in each doc library
- PowerApps and Flows are associated with libraries, not with folders
We have the same/similar requirement and have successfully solved it with this Classic setup:
- Create 1 site for the project that needs different external orgs to collaborate with the internal project team
- Create 1 library for each external company
- Create 1 SharePoint group for each external company, plus one for the internal team
- Give all groups read access to site.
- Customize library permissions so each library is accessible to the appropriate SharePoint Group (e.g., internal SP group and external company SP group)
- Then Share the Site with each external user - adding them to their company's Group. This gives them Read access to the Home site and contribute to their library only. They cannot view the other libraries.
This may seem cumbersome, but it allows the site owner to add new external users pretty safely as the permissions are all set up beforehand. They just need to invite them using the correct SP Group. Note, I do understand this is a bit old school, but my clients do not like the complicate navigation experience of O365 Groups. They just want to share files and maybe a calendar.
Hope that helps.