creating user without license for Sharepoint

[Charles-André Bélanger]

Hello,

I need to give access to some external users of my organization to our Sharepoint (Office 365).

So I created a user in my tenant without giving im a license, this allow me to assign his name as a "reader" to a resource in my Sharepoint.

The question I have, is this legal or "legit" to do this? The fact that this user does not have a license assign, and the fact that this user can access resources in my tenant

thanks for your help

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Charles,

It is 100% legal per the official article here

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/sharepoint/external-sharing-overview?redirectSourcePath=%252fen-us%...

Hope that helps,

Best, Chris

[#3]

Not exactly. You need to use the “sharing” method. Creating an account without a license is using azuread etc. and requires a license. Has to be B2B via using the Share site or sharing links for documents / list items or if it’s group connected inviting as guest to the group to provide access.

[#4]

Agree with Chris Webb, on this one.His answer should be marked as the correct answer. Users need to be invited as external users in order to be legal. The process of creating them an account in azuread, not licensing them, but still granting them a SharePoint access doesn’t adhere to Microsoft’s licensing policies.

[#5]

Thanks guys.

Thanks for the point out. I interpreted the question as the invitation and ‘creation’ of an external guest account into a SPO site - not the actual creation of a user on the domain through the admin centre. These external guests usually have EXT on the UPN.

Apologies, will try to be more specific next time!

Best, Chris

[#6]

Hmmmm... Guest users are guest users whether they are created using the Azure AD portal or created by an application as the result of a user extending a sharing invitation (SharePoint) or to join a group (Teams, Planner, Office 365 Groups). The end result is an Azure AD account marked as a guest. These accounts don't need to be licensed to access resources in a tenant. They do need licenses (1:5 ratio to tenant accounts, but this is not enforced) when Azure AD premium features are used (like dynamic groups), but that doesn't come into play if the accounts are used for SharePoint document sharing.

See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/b2b/licensing-guidance

[#7]

Charles,

     So I guess the question is, were you creating them as "guest" users in your tenant in or as "normal" users in your tenant? Guest users, no license is required as Tony mentioned; normal users, a license is required if you're looking at the legality of it :)

 

[#8]

Or where to look for it after it was created:

[#9]

Tony: He did say he created a user not a guest account but you are def. correct. That's why I said B2B user setup, I could have been a little more clear.

Anyway, Charles-Andre those are regular users from the looks of it. Check out Tony's article about B2B users. The easiest way to Share SharePoint content is to just use the Share links on the page or on specific documents / folders and you don't have to worry about the specifics, but since you already have created the user in your tenant it'll make it hard because of the e-mail match. You'll have to do some clean up of the account and give it some time to clear out, or manually set up the guest account in azure ad portal.azure.com then go back and add them to the resources.