Unable to Share with External Users

Copper Contributor

Hello all,

as of today I am unable to share with external users from a sharepoint site.

I checked all avenues:

Office 365 - external sharing On

SharePoint - external sharing on

Site - external sharing On

when i choose a document in a library and click Share-Specific People I get this error

 

Your organization's policies don't allow you to share with these users. Go to External Sharing in the Office 365 admin center to enable it.

@Alina Skarbovsky

37 Replies

Hello seems i figured it out, had to go the powershell route as the tenant UI setting were not working

set-sposite -identity $Siteurl -sharingcapability ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

 

Yes that the correct way to do it and currently the only way so well done.

Thank you so much for this. 
Only just started to learn how to use powershell properly, and i wouldn't have found this that fast.

you sir are my hero of the day

1. Does this need to be run using the SPO Powershell? 2. Is that the actual CMDlet? If not, can you add an example with a fake SPO Url please?

I tried

set-sposite -identity $Siteurl https://fake123.sharepoint.com/sites/test-city -sharingcapability ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

And get ugly red errors:

Set-SPOSite : Cannot validate argument on parameter 'Identity'. The argument is null or empty. Provide an argument
that is not null or empty, and then try the command again.
At line:1 char:23

 

Thank You

Hi Dale,
Yes this was using SharePoint Online Management shell which you can get here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=35588

 

Note: to run this you have to be a "Global Admin" or it won't work.

 

$adminUPN="replace_with_username"
$orgName="name_of_sharepoint_prefix"
$usercredential = Get-Credential -username $adminUPN -Message "type password"
Connect-SPOService -Url https://$orgName-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential $userCredential
$siteurl="https://$orgName.sharepoint.com/sites/desired_site_collection"
set-sposite -identity $siteurl -sharingcapability ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

 

Credit is from this post:
http://itgroove.net/brainlitter/2017/06/01/enable-guest-folder-file-sharing-office-365-group-files/

FYI, I am seeing the following in my Service Health center 

SP115406 - Unable to share with external users
 
Office Admin center - Service health
User Impact: Users are unable to perform external sharing. More info: Users may encounter an error message which states, "Your organization's policies don't allow you to share with these users. Go to External Sharing in the Office 365 admin center to enable it". This issue only affects users if external sharing is enabled on the site collection from the SharePoint admin center. As a workaround, users may request that an admin enable external sharing via PowerShell. Current status: Our investigation determined that a recent update contained a code defect which caused impact to updating the External Sharing user interface. We've developed a fix and have deployed it to a subset of infrastructure to perform thorough testing before the fix is deployed to all remaining infrastructure. The deployment process is expected to take up to one week to complete. Scope of impact: This issue is specific to users who have external sharing enabled within the SharePoint admin center. Start time: Wednesday, August 16, 2017, at 6:48 AM UTC

Hi Dean!

I can confirm this message, I am seeing the same thing. Hopefully this will help folks! Appreciate you chiming in as always!

Thank You! :)

SP115406 - Unable to share with external users

is the reason I needed this, as enabling external sharing via PowerShell is listed as a workaround.

I see it was mentioned already.

Hello Everyone,

 

We have exactly the same problem but with OneDrive, the powershell commandline seems only for SharePoint Sites, anyone tried with OneDrive ? 

Tried with OneDrive and it Works! Get the URL from SharePoint Admin Center - look for the one with my-sharepoint in it - Thats it.

That is your OneDrive urlThat is your OneDrive url

Thanks Dale i'm going to try it right now !

Thats Good news Dale! what script did you use?

I tried and it works ! Thanks a lot

the one posted above:

Yes this was using SharePoint Online Management shell which you can get here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/download/details.aspx?id=35588

 

Note: to run this you have to be a "Global Admin" or it won't work.

 

$adminUPN="replace_with_admin-username"
$orgName="Company Name"
$usercredential = Get-Credential -username $adminUPN -Message "type password"
Connect-SPOService -Url https://$orgName-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential $userCredential


$siteurl="https://$orgName.sharepoint.com/sites/desired_site_collection"
set-sposite -identity $siteurl -sharingcapability ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

 

The

"Connect-SPOService -Url https://$orgName-admin.sharepoint.com"

URL you get from Sharepoint online admin center

Hi everyone,

 

Thank you for the discusion and the PowerShell solution. I noticed that it was mentioned back in August that a fix was being rolled out for the GUI. Does anyone know when we can expect this?

 

Cheers,

 

-f.


@Douglas Clelland wrote:

Hello seems i figured it out, had to go the powershell route as the tenant UI setting were not working

set-sposite -identity $Siteurl -sharingcapability ExternalUserAndGuestSharing

 



Thanks so much for this... just what I needed today! Worked perfectly.

Seems rather silly this isn't working in the UI yet (still)...

I agree ... having to do things by script adds a lot of over head. My IT manager, has complained that he hates the Admin overhead with O365 because what he could do in the past with a GUI in a few seconds he now has to do by scripting and for him who hasn't done a lot of PowerShell this is cumbersome and a learning curve that he doesn't have time to spend learning. All fine and good if you are a dev-op who was brought up on scripting.

I did a bit of testing on this out of curiosity, and found (at least from the sites I tested in my tenant, not necessarily a thorough examination) that external sharing works via the UI settings on sites I created prior to the time when a new site created an O365 group. The sites that are "Public Groups" all seem to not be allowing external sharing (though I have it enabled at all the levels, as you did), unless I use the PowerShell cmdlet. 

Since those are the same sites that don't show up in the list of Site Collections in the SharePoint Admin center, I hope when we get the new Admin Center (that shows the "groupified" sites as well), that maybe the external sharing settings will propagate correctly....