Restricted Link in New SPO Sharing Interface

[Stewart Foss]

We got the updated "Sharing" interface in SharePoint Online in our organization this week. We are an educational institution and while all our users (students and faculty/staff) are all in our Office 365 user base, we have used SharePoint Online for faculty/staff only content. We have some sites where documents are stored and then staff link to them (email, on websites, portal, etc.). Historically we have encouraged and trained staff to use "Restricted Link" from the sharing UI to ensure that the link they sent respected the site's permissions. Now we not longer see that as an option, and the default is to everyone in our organization (which could be a real disaster). Am I missing something? How do we change this behavior or direct users to get "Restricted" links like they used to?

[#2]

I'm fairly certain the Specific People link does the same functionality. I know you can update the default for OneDrive sharing, not sure about the option on SharePoint. 

[#3]

You can set the default to "Direct - only people who already have permission" in the OneDrive Admin Center:

Then, you should see the following:

And that's all...

[#4]

You are right. When I chose "Specific People" it asks for names of people. If you leave it blank, it behaves like the "Restricted" link. I'm not crazy about that part of the new experience, but it does work. Thanks.

[#5]

But this will change / could break your OneDrive experience if in use. So be mindful :p

[#6 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Stewart Foss,

We made a slight behavior change to the "restricted link" option by allowing users to add more people to the document at the same time. Selecting that type of link and entering no name is equivalent to the old model, though we totally agree it's a little weird. 

On a SharePoint site, we actually have a 4th option called "People with existing access only" which is identical to the specific people link except that it doesn't allow you to add new people. To confirm, the screenshots above are from OneDrive for Business, correct? 

We've been discussing if it makes sense to have that 4th option in ODB as well so I'll forward this thread along internally so can discuss more. 

Also, @Salvatore Biscari described the correct way to set the "default link" that will show up to users when they click share. 

Thanks for the feedback!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#7]

It was in SharePoint Online, not OneDrive. I checked today and there is now a "People with existing access" link, which is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

[#8]

@Stewart Foss, happy to help! 

Thanks,

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#9]

Hi Stephen, related to this matter I also have a question. In the sharepoint admin center I can set the default link type option for sharing to "direct". However this default option refers to the "specific people" link type and not to the "People with existing access" link type. Is that somehting that could be changed? I try to educate my colleagues on how to link and the "people with existing access" link type is in my view the most logical default. I know the "specific people" link type effectively does the same, but it looks quite techy with those coded user groups etc. 

Looking forward to your reply,

Rick 

[#10]

Hi @Rick van Doorn,

Unfortunately, the "direct" option only applies to specific people and there isn't any way to change this at the moment, nor do we have any current plans to change the behavior. I'll pass your feedback around the rest of the sharing team though and we'll add it to our backlog of work.

Thanks again!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#11]

Hi @Stephen Rice, thanks for your feedback. It is not a huge problem but to make it as easy and logical as possible I think it would be a good idea. 

Thanks for putting it on the backlog.

Kind regards,

Rick

[#12]

Hi,

We have the same issue in SharePoint online. On all our site collections we had the default choice as "share with people with existing acces" at once the default was changed to "share with specific people" and it is no longer possible to set the other one as the default since it is not visible as an option in the admin center. Was this caused by an update or something?

[#13]

Adding @Stephen Rice

[#14]

@Nienke van Meurs,

People with existing access was not ever available as a default sharing option (to my knowledge at least). You could set "specific people" as an option though. Thanks!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#15]

Hi @Stephen Rice

I think the problem is that, before, the wording was "Direct - only people who already have permission", while now is "Direct - specific people".

Do both wordings generate the same kind of link?

[#16]

@Salvatore Biscari, thanks for the clarification. Yes, we did change the wording but the behavior is the same.

The "direct" link has always meant the sharing option that is for sharing with a finite set of recipients (without allowing the share to be passed on further). When set, the user selects recipients and clicks share.

The link for people with existing access is meant specifically for people who already have access. When the user uses this type of link and enters recipients, we check to see if they already have access. If they do, we send the link. If not, we surface and error and require the user to either remove users who don't have access or switch to a different sharing link that can add permission.

Thanks!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#17]

@Stephen RiceThans for the reply. I'd like to provide you with soma additional info; as you can see we have both options existing alongsite each other in our SharePoint Online sites/libraries. The red "people with existing acces" and the orange "specific people" (sorry for the Dutch). The red "people with existing acces" used to be the default untill now. In the admin center there are only 3 options

1) direct-specific people

2) internal-people within the organisation

3) anonymous: everyone with te link

so it seems that the change in the description of setting 1 caused the red "people with existing acces" to no longer work and shifted the default to the orange "specific people". However both of them are still visible in the libraries which is confusing for users.

[#18]

Actually on some of our sites, sharing with people that already have access is still the default

[#19]

Hi @Nienke van Meurs,

Very interesting! Can you check the "Members Can Share" setting for the sites that have this as the default vs. not? Similarly, can you also check the "Limited Access" mode setting? Thanks!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#20]

hello @Stephen Rice,

I looked at 2 different sites within the same tenant:

https://vxmanagedservices.sharepoint.com/sites/P13332

https://vxmanagedservices.sharepoint.com/sites/CT-Test

Both have the same settings regarding members can share (nothing filled in; however at the "test"side at first it said someone@.. as an example) and limited acces (deactivated)

if I log on with my "normal"account the default sharing option at https://vxmanagedservices.sharepoint.com/sites/P13332 (and most other sites within the tenant) is "people who already have access" (I can also choose the other options) and at 

https://vxmanagedservices.sharepoint.com/sites/CT-Test the default is "specific people"

if I log on with my admin account (with more sharing rights) the default for both is "specific people"

other than that, I think the only difference between the two is that P13332 was created by script and the test site was created by hand, but as far as I know there is nothing in the script that sets this default. I guess it must have something do do with the access rights of different site members.