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Setting "Anyone" share link permissions on individual sites in Sharepoint

Copper Contributor

We are attempting to use Sharepoint sites / collections to store various common Documents.

 

We want to create different sites for specific purposes (Finance, Art, etc.)

 

We occasionally will want to share files in these site with external users via the Anyone option, although the default sharing option will still be within the organization.

 

We have successfully set up these permissions in the Admin center and are getting the desired effect on the default TeamSite.

 

team site.PNG

However, I can not seem to get the same permission to present itself on the other sites we have created.

 

not share.PNG

I have gone through the instructions here with no success: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Share-your-Office-365-sites-with-external-users-89502322-bf...

 

Am I missing something?

 

Thanks!

 

13 Replies

Hi Ken,

 

Even after enabling External and anonymous sharing in the SharePoint Admin Console, new sites are created with anonymous sharing disabled.  You need to select the site in the SharePoint Admin Console and select "Sharing" on the site in question and then change the first set of options to the fourth radio button entitled: "Allow sharing with all external users, and by using anonymous access links".  Then you should see the "Anyone" option available on that site.

 

three.png

 

two.png

 

Thanks for the response, @Andrew Mueller

 

When I go to the Admin center, I can not see the sites I have created in that interface.

 

All I see if this, the default sharepoint collections, I suppose:

 

admin site.PNG

 

 

When I search on the URL depicted below, it tells me it can not find the site, although it does exist.

 

site does exist.PNG

 

Why can I not see my sites (as depicted above) in the Collections tab?

 

Thanks!

In the SPO Admin Center, you don't see the site collections connected to Groups (aka Modern Team Sites) and, indeed, those site collections are not enabled for anonymous sharing, by default.

In order to enable them (which at the moment could be done only by PowerShell) see the Office 365 Groups section in https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Turn-external-sharing-on-or-off-for-SharePoint-Online-62882...

Hope it helps...

Thanks @Salvatore Biscari, good point.  The new SPO Admin Center has the new modern site collections on it, but I have not heard an ETA for GA.  The preview right now shows all of them but there are very few controls yet. 

Thanks for the reply @Salvatore Biscari.

 

In the documentation you reference, there is a script that will "Updating the sharing setting for all sites in a tenant."

 

Two Questions, if I may:

 

1) Will this modify the sharing setting for all current and FUTURE sites, or would this need to be run again when new sites are created?

 

2) Just to be clear, the parameter ExternalUserAndGuestSharing is the one that will turn on anonymous sharing permissions (Anyone), correct?

 

Thanks again, 

 

Ken

 

and continued thanks to @Andrew Mueller

 

 

best response confirmed by Ken Hardin (Copper Contributor)
Solution
  1. The script updates the setting only for existing sites.
  2. Correct.

@Salvatore Biscari Hello Again, Mr. Biscari:

 

I have attempted to run the Powershell script as directed (see attached for mods) and I get a bunch of red (I assume error) feedback from Powershell prior to the closing "External Sharing Capability updated for all sites." message displaying.

 

error codes.PNG

 

And, predictably, the Anyone Sharing setting has not changed in the Sharepoint interface.

 

Can you refer us to some source that can handle this task for a fee, etc.? Candidly, we never expected to have to suss out running a script to set a very basic permission such as File Sharing on what is marketed as a SaaS solution, and are simply out of out depth here, I am afraid.

 

I have attached our edits to the script, in case we have simply made some obvious blunder.

 

Thanks so much for all your help.

 

Ken

 

@Ken Hardin Hello,

 

I was reviewing the error that you received.  This is caused by not having the SharePoint Online Management Shell.  If you follow this link 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35588 You can install the module which will then accept the Connect-SPOService cmdlet.  

 

The below script is a modified variation of what is found on the previous site: 

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/turn-external-sharing-on-or-off-for-sharepoint-online-62882...

 

 

  1. $userCredential = Get-Credential
  2. Connect-SPOService -Url https://TenantName-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential $userCredential
  3. $sites = Get-SPOSite -Limit ALL -includepersonalsite:$true
  4. Foreach($site in $sites)
  5. {
  6. Set-SPOSite -Identity $site.Url -SharingCapability ExternalUserSharingOnly
  7. }
  8. Write-Host("External Sharing Capability updated for all sites.")

 

This script will need some modification from you. 

  1. The URL section in line 2 will need to be changed to reflect the SharePoint Admin Center URL. 
  2. The portion of line 6 "in italics" will need to be changed to reflect the sharing permission that you want to have enabled for all sites.  The sharing permission can be found in the link mentioned above.  

NOTE: The Script given will also update the sharing capability of all OneDrive sites as well.  The script in the article does not.  You can omit the OneDrive for Business from being updated by the script by changing the term in line 3 "-includepersonalsite:$true" from $true to $false.

Wow! Thank you so much. I didn't know what powershell was until today. I had the same issues as above and this worked to fix it. Felt so good to see that "Anyone" option now selectable.

 

It's ridiculous that it took this much just to change that option. Microsoft, change this.

 

EDIT: See Ken Hardin's comment below. Looks like they fixed it. Great news!

@WillinColo Just a quick note ... this has apparently been resolved in the new Admin interface for share point. I was just able to select a new site under Active Sites and set Anyone under the share options.

For this script can you also edit number 3 parameter to be limited to a single site?
1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Ken Hardin (Copper Contributor)
Solution
  1. The script updates the setting only for existing sites.
  2. Correct.

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