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Eric Adler's avatar
Eric Adler
Steel Contributor
Jul 10, 2019

SharePoint Guests are Prompted for Login?

We have all the setting open wide for sharing content with external partners.

 

Recently one of the main sites is now requiring users to login. As guests, they haven't had to do this before. 

 

I can see them in the Guests area of the Admin Center. 

 

What is prompting them to login? What login would they be using?

    • StephenRice's avatar
      StephenRice
      Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft

      Hi Eric Adler,

       

      This is actually not related to the new preview as that is opt-in only (if you did opt in and are seeing these issues though, please let me know!).

       

      This looks like a change we actually made last year where, when sharing to an O365 account, the recipient gets asked to sign in with their O365 account instead of the OTP flow. Can you help me understand the error you are seeing in these cases? Thanks!

       

      Stephen Rice

      OneDrive Program Manager II

      • kevinmckeown8's avatar
        kevinmckeown8
        Iron Contributor

        This sounds similar to what happened to one of our external users last week. A SharePoint folder was shared with the user via "Share with Specific People" and he received the invitation email as expected.

         

        When the user clicked the link in his email to access the folder, he was asked to enter his email, then when he entered his email it says "Sign in to your account and we'll give you access immediately". He clicks Next, sign's in, but then is given a message:

         

        "That didn't work:

        We're sorry, but "xxxx" can't be found in the "my company's" directory. Please try again later while we try to automatically fix this for you."

         

        We tried having him use an Incognito session, but it took him through the exact same steps and produced the same error. 

         

        I tried removing his external/guest account from our Azure AD and SharePoint and then add him again, but it kept giving him the same issues. 

         

        So far this is the only external user we have encountered this issue with.

  • Tunturi's avatar
    Tunturi
    Copper Contributor

    Similar very strange issues. Yesterday shared a OneDrive for business folder with "Specific people" i.e whoxxx@somemail.com. This user gets a link to a dialog with " To verify your identity we'll send a code to you......" This code arrives at the above mail an after entering it access is granted. Very good - a kind of MFA. Today sharing  a similar directory to the same mail creates a link when clicked asks "Sign in to whoxxx@somemail.com and we'll give you access immediately" which in practice will require a O365 of Live account. Deleted the O365 EXT# account but no success

    • StephenRice's avatar
      StephenRice
      Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft

      Hi Tunturi,

       

      In the second case, was the user unable to sign-in or is the concern that the same user got different behavior? Thanks!

       

      Stephen Rice

      OneDrive Program Manager II

      • Tunturi's avatar
        Tunturi
        Copper Contributor

        StephenRiceI was testing different sharing scenarios. And in the second case the user would have had to register a Microsoft account (Live or O365) as I understand it.

        As trivial as this sounds, for a one person company, having one mail account and a different identity using the same mail is already confusing.

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