Feb 26 2018
03:10 AM
- last edited on
Feb 06 2023
03:19 AM
by
TechCommunityAP
Feb 26 2018
03:10 AM
- last edited on
Feb 06 2023
03:19 AM
by
TechCommunityAP
Hello, we just received the Major Update Notification: New ways to govern access of external users are coming to Office 365
When I read the accompanied KB I conclude that external anonymous sharing will not work anymore after this date. And that when using Office365 groups in collaboration with external users we will be fine and nothing changes. Are my assumptions correct?
Feb 26 2018 03:53 AM
SolutionIMHO, you are not correct.
What will change is that external users will see only the content that has been shared directly with them or with Groups to which the external users belong.
This applies only to external users which are required to sign-in, while anonymous sharing will continue to work as usual.
Feb 26 2018 06:45 AM
Totally agree here with @Salvatore Biscari . Adding also @Stephen Rice
Feb 26 2018 08:59 AM
Hi Salvatore, thanks for the clarification. Good to hear.
Feb 26 2018 09:03 AM
@Salvatore Biscari is correct. This change only changes the "Everyone", "All Authenticated Users" and "All Forms Users" claims/groups. So before this change, if you shared something to "Everyone", that content would be accessible by all users in your organization and all guest users in your directory. Now, it will only be the first group. Hope that helps!
Stephen Rice
OneDrive Program Manager II
Mar 07 2018 01:03 PM
Mar 07 2018 03:33 PM
Hi @Harold Anderson,
Anonymous sharing is disabled by default for group-connected sites. You will need to use SharePoint Online Management PowerShell to change that setting (Set-SPOSite). Soon you will be able to do this via the new SPO Admin Center as well (which will show group-connected sites). Thanks!
Stephen Rice
OneDrive Program Manager II
Mar 07 2018 03:51 PM
Mar 07 2018 03:53 PM
Not today. The Admin center changes will be coming very soon (but I don't know the exact date).
Stephen Rice
OneDrive Program Manager II
Mar 07 2018 03:58 PM
Mar 07 2018 04:14 PM
Mar 08 2018 03:25 AM
Hi @Harold Anderson.
It is actually very simple to share Group items to anonymous users.
The main steps are the following:
The first two steps are clearly described in the following article:
Also, we have discussed this topic in detail in many threads in this community.
Hope it helps...
Mar 08 2018 08:12 AM - edited Mar 08 2018 08:13 AM
It is actually impossible to do without the PowerShell according to Microsoft, see above posts by Stephen Rice.
Mar 08 2018 08:18 AM
Correct.
At the moment you need PowerShell in order to change the sharing setting for site collections connected to Groups. It will be possible to do it in the new SPO admin UI, but we don't know when.
What is the problem in using PowerShell? It is quite easy, IMHO.
Mar 08 2018 08:46 AM
Mar 08 2018 09:08 AM
Harold, it's not fair to compare Office 365 with Dropbox.
Office 365 is immensely more powerful, and hence more complex, than Dropbox.
So, if you don't need the power of Office 365, then stay with Dropbox, but otherwise you need to learn to manage the complexity of Office 365 in general, and of SharePoint in particular.
Also, in Office 365 it is a common pattern to have at first most options configurable only with PowerShell, with the most frequent ones arriving eventually to the UI at a later time.
In short, if you want to be proficient with Office 365, you need to be at least a little familiar with PowerShell.
What doesn't work for you in the PowerShell code described in the article I linked?
Mar 08 2018 09:17 AM
Mar 08 2018 09:26 AM
Understood.
PowerShell is actually needed only to tenant admins, in order to configure less common options.
So, if you aren't the tenant admin, you can ask your admin to configure the relevant options.
If you are instead the tenant admin, then you need to do a little effort and learn the basics of PowerShell.
Otherwise, you will only scratch the surface of Office 365, IMHO.
Just my opinion, of course...
Mar 08 2018 10:23 AM
Mar 08 2018 10:55 AM
Hi Harold,
What you're seeing is certainly a rough edge on the product and it's one that we are quickly working to address. When looking at OneDrive and SharePoint (SharePoint being deeply connected with O365 Groups), the former is intended for files that belong to "Me" and SharePoint/Groups are for files that belong to "We" (i.e. multiple people). Our goal is for both experiences to have the same great collaboration abilities and the same great security features. Because SharePoint/Groups have an implicit concept of membership (the "Group" of people), Group files are further locked down (disabling anonymous links) for security reasons while OneDrive has anonymous enabled by default.
Today, you do have to use PowerShell to open the Group site up for broader sharing and we've heard lots of feedback that the experience is, well, suboptimal :) The new SharePoint admin center (which started rolling out recently) is going to make this entire experience much better for you. While PowerShell can certainly be useful, we don't want to make it a requirement for using O365 effectively (especially for smaller businesses which may not have dedicated IT departments).
If you need step-by-step instructions on enabling anonymous sharing for your Groups, shoot me a PM and I can send you each command you'll need to run to make this all work. Thanks!
Stephen Rice
OneDrive Program Manager II
Feb 26 2018 03:53 AM
SolutionIMHO, you are not correct.
What will change is that external users will see only the content that has been shared directly with them or with Groups to which the external users belong.
This applies only to external users which are required to sign-in, while anonymous sharing will continue to work as usual.