Forum Discussion
Sharing a document library with external users
That would be because of the way groups work in SharePoint. No matter where you create a group they are attached to the site collection. So when the invitation is sent its sent for the root context of the group. But the only permission the user will have in that site is Limited Access. So all they will be able to do is access the site and see the document that they do have permission to access. They still only have permission to the document. The only way to create an invitation to just the document is to share the document with the user individually. The user will still get limited access to the site, but the invitation will be in the context of the document.
Damien Flood - Could you summarize the approach that works well for you? I read through these messages and I got a little confused. I would have gone a slightly different path, I would have given the group, A- Readonly, read-access to site 'Alpha' and read access to 'Library A'. I would have then locked down any of the lists and libaries on the site that I did NOT want my external collaborators to access.
Gregory Frick Hi, sorry for the late response.
So what has worked for my scenario is:
1. Within Library A, I share a file with an external user with view only permissions.
2. Once the user has accepted the invitation I add the user to the security group with read-only permissions. Now that user has read-only access to all items in that library.
In future, I am thinking its best to segregate the content for internal users vs external i.e. have a specific teamsites for external groups etc. But the way it is currently we have it mixed and its not optimal for management.
Cheers
