Forum Discussion
SP Online and contractors
@Roy K wrote:
If the contractor is considered 'outside the organization' as a vendor and works off site rather than on-site, then you can share. For example, if you hired a contractor and you gave them a desk, laptop and corp email address, then they need a license.
For 'outsiders' and they have their own email address, then you can share site or documents as an external user. The outsider contractor would have to create an MS account and there user id would be their email address.
Hi Roy K. What you say makes sense, and also would fit our situation, as contractors are all off-site/ external. But where does Microsoft officially say this?
All I can find is the statement posted above "External users are not employees, contractors, or onsite agents for either you or your affiliates".
This does not distinguish between on-site and off-site contractors.
So where I came to my determination was with a call with an MS account manager about a year ago about assessing SP Online for external sharing. I can't recall the exact words, but it was my general take away. The word contractor here is vague. To make sure, you would have to discuss with an MS account manager or maybe create a support ticket to get this question answered. Or maybe Salvatore has some documentation to backup his claim.
Hi roykim.
I was just asking the same to you: do you have any documentation to backup what you say?
I am afraid that without an official written document that states the contrary, the rule is clear: a contractor is a contractor and cannot be considered an external user, and that's all.
I know that TonyRedmond is very precise in such kind of things: maybe he can chime in...
My take on this topic is that the term ""contractor" is very generic and differs from company to company depending on the market they operate within, their business model, and country. The so-called "gig economy" has created many contractors, if you accept that these people are not full-time employees but are engaged by enterprises to deliver specific services on behalf of those enterprises.
Like any legal agreement, you have to read it to understand what the intent is. My understanding is that Microsoft does not want to create a situation where long-term contractors, who are almost employees, are brought into the Office 365 ecosystem without licenses. In other words, you use a tenant with a few licenses to generate documents that are then farmed out to hundreds of contractors via sharing to allow them to work on those documents. This might be acceptable for a short-term burst of activity, but unacceptable over a longer term.
If in doubt, the safest approach is to assign contractors an account within the tenant and license them for whatever work they need to do.
TR
Hi Salvatore,
The documentation to backup my opinion is what has Paul has been sharing. As well as a discussion I had with an MS account manager a year ago. I can't really recall his exact words though, but that was my take away. I feel this doc/sentence is up for interpretation so I suggest to speak with an MS representative.
Salvatore Biscari wrote:I am afraid that without an official written document that states the contrary, the rule is clear: a contractor is a contractor and cannot be considered an external user, and that's all.
Thanks for replies Salvatore. Right now what you say is how I read things too.
Just to add to the confusion, MS has provided https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/active-directory-b2b-licensing which does not mention "contractors". I think that this uses much more precise language than the support.office.com page.
I think that we need to consider Microsoft's intent and how they operate their own business. They have thousands of "contractors" in India and other locations who while they have MS badges don't get all of the benefits provided to their full time employees. Given this, it seems logical to evaluate our business relationships in a similar manner when determining who needs a license.
