Default share when sharing online files in Outlook online

[Robert Lien]

Hi,

I noticed that when I attach a online file in Outlook online sending to an Office 365 Group, the default share permission on that online file is everyone in the organization.  How can I change this default to be with share permission only to the office 365 group?

thx

[#2]

Does it happen with both public and private Groups?

[#3]

The group in question is a private group, I wouldn't be concerned from a public group I suppose.

[#4]

Sorry, I am unable to reproduce the issue.

Can you please detail the related steps?

[#5]

Sure:

1. I open Outlook online

2. Click the "Files" section of a Office 365 Group

3. Select a file and select "Email"

4. Email will then be attached as a link to online file (see picture below)

[#6]

Sure:

1. I open Outlook online

2. Click the "Files" section of a Office 365 Group

3. Select a file and select "Email"

4. Email will then be attached as a link to online file (see picture below), notice access to file is for "Anyone in my organization".

[#7]

Today’s post was written by Rebecca Lawler, program manager on the Outlook Web App team.

We’re thrilled to announce two new ways to share files with Outlook Web App (OWA) and OneDrive for Business that make it much simpler to share and collaborate:

• When you send an email in OWA, you can easily insert a link to a file on your OneDrive for Business cloud drive instead of attaching the file itself.
• When you send an attachment from your computer or device you can now automatically upload the file to your OneDrive for Business cloud drive and share the file as a link to that location.

Now when you send files to others, instead of having to open the attachment, make edits and then send the document back to you, everyone can simply open the document directly from the link and make edits in a single draft. This means the people you’re working with will always see the latest changes, and you can avoid confusion over multiple versions. It also allows multiple people to make changes to a single document at the same time using the Office clients or Office Online.

When you use OWA to share files stored on OneDrive for Business, recipients in the To: and Cc: lines automatically are given permission to view and edit the file. But it’s also easy to change the permissions on the file directly from the email message.

Here’s how it works:

The process begins when you choose to add an attachment to your message.

The files on your OneDrive for Business are available for you to choose from, including your recent files and files that have been shared with you.

[#8]

Not sure how this relates to the issue I am asking about?

[#9]

I can confirm this, the issue is only with the "email" right-click feature though. If you start composing a new message and attach the file, it's properly scoped to recipients only (both in OWA and Outlook). I guess they simply forgot to scope the right-click shortcut.

FWIW, you can still adjust the permissions after you've attached the file via the "email" right-click menu.

@cfiessinger FYI

[#10]

I'm not so sure if this is an issue or a lack of functionality since in order to send a file as a file stored in OneDrive or in the Group you need to share it first. I agree it would be worth to be able the permissions while sharing, but I don't recall to have seen this option...so I think is more a lack of functionality than an issue / bug

[#11]

Hi Vasil.

I see the same behavior also if I start composing a new message and attach the file from the Group.

So in OWA, in any case, it defaults to "Anyone in my organization".

Also, if I want to change the permissions, I would like to see also the option "Restricted", which instead is not there...

[#12]

That's what I see for Public groups, but for Private it's automatically scoped to recipients. Maybe it's just another functionality they're currently rolling out, so we see different experience in different tenants...

[#13]

I hope that is the case, will monitor this.  Can you confirm that you are also doing the following:

From within Outlook online after selecting a group, and then on the "Files" tab, you select a file, the click on "Email", as shown in image below

[#14]

I hope that is the case, will monitor this.  Can you confirm that you are also doing the following:

From within Outlook online after selecting a group, and then on the "Files" tab, you select a file, the click on "Email", as shown in image.

[#15]

Yup, either click the button or right-click select Email. If you do it by starting a new conversation and attaching files from the compose window, it works as expected.

[#16]

Robert thanks for the feedback. This is by design today since the intent was to give you the ability to email the file to others that are NOT group members (hence the default sharing to the entire organization (you can change the permissions to Recipients can edit or Recipients can view).

What did you expect from the Email action in the files view?

[#17]

Hi Christopher,

Thanks for your answer. 

I would fully expect that the default be edit for those within the group, especially since the group is a private group.  For public group I can understand if the default was entire organization, but not for a private.  normally when I would communicate within the group, I would normally intend for only the group to have edit permissions.

From your feedback, it seems that the common behaviour for email is to communicate with those NOT in a group, but I think the normal purpose for communicating with email links would be to specific group members, or entire group.

As a follow-up question, is there any way for me to change the default for my own tenant? using powershell.  If not, I would request that the default be changed to edit permission for the recipient of the email.

thx

Robert

MCWE

[#18]

@cfiessinger the right-click functionality or the Email are cool additions, we're not complaining about these. It's the difference in permissions that's causing some confusion. If you have a Private group and attach a file from OneDrive "the regular way" (compose a new message, press the attachments button, browse to the file), it gets automatically permissoned to the recipients only. This works the same way in OWA or Outlook, and it matches my expectations for such functionality.

If you use the new method via the Email button/right-click menu, even for Private groups it gets scoped down to everyone in the company. Personally, I'd prefer to have the exact same behavior as the older method, and it definitely makes sense to me to scope it only to the recipients if you are in Private group. So there should still be no problem for anyone that is intended to access the file, while still keeping the file, well, Private.

In both cases, we can still change the permissions manually, so it's not that big of a deal. But having different permissions applied can be confusing.

[#19]

@VasilMichev

As I already said, I cannot reproduce the difference you are seeing.

In fact, for me, in both cases (i.e. "the regular way" and via the Email button/right-click menu) the attachment from a private Group gets the "Anyone in my organization can edit" permission as default.

[#20]

Well, one of us is not using the latest updates. Pretty sure it's me in the case of Outlook, as I'm on FR for Deferred and havent pushed the Feb build yet, but I also get the same experience in OWA.

Just tried it again, and it again gets scoped to "recipients" in both OWA and Outlook using the "regular" method.