Do I need Exchange Online so SharePoint Online / ODFB notifications are sent when sharing?

[Juan Carlos González Martín]

Dear all,

Just a question I don't have a clear answer: do I need Exchange Online so SPO / ODFB can send notifications when a file or folder is shared? I'm aware of the changes done by Microsoft last year in regards of how e-mails are sent from SPO and ODFB (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3134824/information-about-changes-to-the-address-that-is-us...) but it's not clear to me license requirements to be able to send these notifications cc @Vasil Michev @Tony Redmond @Salvatore Biscari

[#2]

After reading carefully the article, I am under the impression that an EO mailbox is not necessary, but I could very well be wrong.

Probably @Stephen Rice can help here...

[#3]

Well, I don't know of many tenants that don't use Exchange Online... But there must be some! 

As I read the notice, it seemed to me that the change was to personalize the notification to include the user's name instead of no-reply@sharepoint.com... And a user will always have that name (the UPN) even if they don't have an EXO mailbox. Presumably, any message to the UPN will be routed to the email service used by the tenant (not EXO).

[#4]

Well, the reason I'm asking this is because I have just a customer reporting that notifications are not being sent to their inboxes (hosted on another e-mail provider outside of Office 365) when they share a file from SPO. This customer is deploying for now only Project Online, so it's clearly an example where EXO is not being rolled out at first

[#5]

An update here: I have been testing this and Salvatore seems to be correct...I have successfully shared documentation with Office 365 users belonging to other tenants so sharing notifications are being sent to them....but same it's not happening when sharing with a Microsoft account or other e-mail account that is not an Office 365 one...so something is not 100 % right. I have opened a support case to see If Microsoft support guys can give me a clue about what's happening

[#6]

Hey all,

Here is how e-mail notifications are supposed to work: If the sharing user has an EXO mailbox, we will (soon) send the mail from the user's mailbox (it will show up in the user's "Sent Items" folder). If the user does not have an EXO mailbox (or does not have the new flight enabled), then the mail comes from no-reply@sharepointonline.com. 

Juan, can you let me know how the support conversation goes? Also, can you also e-mail me at srice@microsoft.com so we can get the product group to help investigate? Thanks!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#7]

Ey Stephen,
Thank you very much for the details...some additional details from my side, after some more testing I was able to receive also notifications to Microsoft accounts so I think I have isolated the problem I'm having for this customer: basically I'm not able to share a file stored in SPO / ODFB with any corporate user who is using a corporate account (user@contoso.com) and it's already a user in the tenant....it seems the problem is due to the fact the corporate domain setup is not completed in the tenant, something I cannot do since customer is using an external e-mail service so I cannot add a MX record in the domain configuration....is this expected? By the way, we can continue the conversation by e-mail.

Thanks!

[#8]

Hi @Juan Carlos González Martín,

To make sure I'm following correctly: You (Juan@Fabrikam.com) are sharing with me (Stephen@contoso.com) and I am not receving the sharing mails. You believe the issue has to do with MX records for Contoso.com and thus my admin would be responsible for fixing it. Is that correct? 

Thanks!

Stephen Rice

[#9]

Ey Stephen, I will give you more details by e-mail

[#10]

All,

I have already sent the details to @Stephen Rice by I have decided also to paste here the complete scenario because I think is worth to know what's happening behind the scenes and also if there is a chance to solve the problem this particular customer is having:

Let me elaborate a little bit more the scenario I have with my customer:

• Scenario: Customer is using Project Online in Office 365…no other Office 365 services are available, so customer is not using Exchange Online or Skype for Business.
• We have configured customer corporate domain (contoso.com) in Office 365, but the domain is not completely validated there since we cannot add a MX record at customer public domain. Reason for this is because customer is using an external e-mail service.
• External sharing has been enabled in a test site collection (and of course is enabled at the tenant level).
• Requirements: customer wants to receive any notifications coming from no-reply@sharepointonline.com to users’s mailboxes that are hosted in the external service. Some examples:
• user2@contoso.com  should receive a notification in his/her inbox when user1@contoso.com has shared a file with him/her. Both users have an Office 365 account (user2@contoso.com and user1@contoso.com) and mailboxes in the external e-mail service (user2@contoso.com and user1@contoso.com)
• When user1@contos.com make project tasks assignments in Project Online and these tasks are assigned (for instance) to user2@contoso.com, user2 should receive a notification in his/her inbox in the external e-mail service coming from no-reply@sharepointonline.com with the summary of the tasks assigned to him/her
• Problem:
• If user1@contoso.com tries to share a file with user2@contoso.com, he/she is not able to share it since the Sharing dialog (the new one) it’s not able to resolve / find user2@contoso.com. Remember here that user2@contoso.com is an Office 365 account and it’s also existing as Mailbox in customer external e-mal service.
• If user1@contoso.com tries to share a file with user3@fabrikam.com (this is a user from other Office 365 tenant) or with a Microsoft account, the sharing dialog is finding both users with no problems and the file is shared with them…of course, both users receive the sharing e-mail coming from no-reply@sharepointonline.com
• Questions:
• Is the sharing problem related to the fact contoso.com is not completely validated in Office 365 so the sharing dialog is not able to find the user so it’s not possible to share files internally in the tenant?
• Is it also causing no other SPO notifications are being sent to contoso.com mailboxes?

[#11]

 I can confirm that in my tentant (full fr) sharing notifications are sent from the users exo mailbox and appear in the Sent Items folder.

I remembered a change in the past but wasn't aware it has been rolled out to us. I noticed it since our MX records point onPrem to an spam firewall and the sharing notifications did no longer appear to be incoming, so I assumed there was a bug with the sharing notifications.

[#12 · Accepted solution]

Thanks Ivan,
I have already solved this thanks to Microsoft support...basically for scenarios where there is not Exchange Online deployed, if you want your Office 365 users to get notified when a file is shared with them in SPO / ODFB, you have to configure work e-mail field for each user in the SPO user profiles...well, as I say many times, I'm always learning new things in Office 365 :-)....so issue solved

[#13]

Yep, I just relied to Stephens comment, since he mentioned "soon", but it's already live for us.
This networks mobile experience is still poor and doesn't show the date a reply was posted, so I'm not sure if I replied to an older comment :)