Project Online licensing for external users

[Jenkins Nesamony Sundararaj]

Hi,

Everyone thought Office 365 External user access is free of cost. I have found a different statement from Microsoft, If you using project online then Project Online licensing for external users follows the same policy as that for internal users. Any interaction on a Project Online site requires a Project Online license.

Ref : https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/project-online-service-description.aspx

Could you please some one clarify this.

My requirement :

Internal users creating and managing Projects in Project online.

They need to share the documents to external users they can edit as well and also update the issues and risks. (i.e project site under project, they required access to external users) not projects.

Could you please share me the licensing part for this project online SharePoint site.

Regards

Jenkins NS

[#2]

Based on the information provided and what I have seen elsewhere, that is correct any interaction on a Project Site requires a Project Online license, it doesn't matter whether it's an internal or external user, they require the appropriate licencing irrespectively.

Using Project Online with external users

That means Project Online Essentials is the minimum requirement, that also covers the other bits that are part of the service - Microsoft Forms, Office Online, SharePoint Online & Sway (see the related screenshot in the link below).  This article provides a lot of information including on licencing, with further details:

External Users Support for Project Online

Going back to the service description, you can see a breakdown of what each licence type provides to match with your requirements.

[#3]

Thank you @Cian Allner

One more query, If I create a separate Site collection(Communication site template) for external users to share documents/files, then it come under free of cost or still required "Project Online Essentials" license?

[#4]

I'd check out the following article and the differences with Authenticated users vs. Anonymous users: 

External sharing overview

The key point is that Authenticated users are limited to basic collaboration tasks without requiring a licence, you can share sites and documents with these users who can use Office Online for viewing and editing documents.  If they need greater capabilities you can assign a licence accordingly.

[#5]

Thank you @Cian Allner 

Adding @Mike Plumley 

Could you please specify the Greater capabilities.

"If your authenticated external users need greater capability, you must assign them an appropriate Office 365 license. Do this in the same way that you would assign a license to an internal user"

Please correct me if I am wrong

"External users with Microsoft accounts, they can view, add, edit and delete lists, documents and pages". Also they can navigate sub sites or pages depending on the permission with out license.

They required license, if they need to do Admin activities, Design activities and Access desktop version.

Also please let me know it is applicable for Project site template also. i.e Project site under PWA(Project Web App - Office 365 Project Online)

Regards

Jenkins NS