Hi all,
we all know that we can easily share documents out of SharePoint libraries with external parties using share links etc. and if you ask me, it works really well!
I get more and more customers that ask me to replace their current FTP server solution and I think that it can quite easily be done with SharePoint. They want to be able to share documents with external parties but they want them to be able to bulk upload data as well. I've implemented a SharePoint solution for one of my customers and it seems to be working really well, but I don't know if this is the smartest way to do it.
I was just wondering if you had any experience with this, using SharePoint to replace FTP servers and if so, what kind of setup did you eventually implement? Did you use a separate site collection all together to make sure that external parties can't access internal company data or did you create a special document library in your existing site structure and secured it with permissions? Or would you even recommend NOT to use SharePoint as FTP server replacement?
I hear some customers complain that, in order for external parties to upload data, they would require an Office365/Hotmail/Live account. I think that easily be explained when you mention the security aspect. Also, witht FTP servers they would need an account as well. This would all just come down to user education/training and proper documentation I reckon.
