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External users can't open documents in desktop application
Hi all! We are having issues with external users not being able to open a shared doc in the desktop program - they can only edit/view in the browser. The "Open in Xprogram" button isn't even an optio...
Hi all,
This behavior is expected (external users not getting the "Open in Office" option) whenever the external user is authenticating via the new one time passcode (OTP) method. You can see a better overview here: Documentation
There are two states an external user can be in today: If they are authenticating via OTP, then they do not have a real AAD account and thus cannot open in clients. This occurs when you share a file or folder with an external user who is not in your directory (i.e. they have never been shared to before).
Inviting a user to a site or a group or using the Azure B2B platform will create an account in AAD for the guest user. These users must have an MSA or AAD account to sign-in with to accept the invitation. They can use Office apps.
This is definitely something we're looking to improve and I definitely suggest you check out the "What's new in External Sharing & Collaboration with OneDrive & SharePoint" talk at Ignite next week ;)
StephenRice
Microsoft
MicrosoftHi Rex_P,
Playing back to make sure I understand: If an external user opens up one of the links to an Excel file, the file attempts to open in the external user's Excel client and then fails.
How is the external user authenticated in this case? I believe the expected behavior here is for the external user to have the file opened in the web browser but it's not immediately clear to me where things are failing. Thanks!
Stephen Rice
Senior Program Manager, OneDrive
Playing back to make sure I understand: If an external user opens up one of the links to an Excel file, the file attempts to open in the external user's Excel client and then fails.
How is the external user authenticated in this case? I believe the expected behavior here is for the external user to have the file opened in the web browser but it's not immediately clear to me where things are failing. Thanks!
Stephen Rice
Senior Program Manager, OneDrive
Your playback is correct.
The external user was originally added by a share link only, but then I added them to our tenant as a guest and that made no difference.
I would be happy if all links just opened in the web browser or better yet in the Office 365 online apps but I've found no way to make that happen.
It'd be nice to have it work that way for external users and maybe even as an option for internal users.
As it is now, the files can't be used by external users.
Any advise?
Thanks,
Rex
The external user was originally added by a share link only, but then I added them to our tenant as a guest and that made no difference.
I would be happy if all links just opened in the web browser or better yet in the Office 365 online apps but I've found no way to make that happen.
It'd be nice to have it work that way for external users and maybe even as an option for internal users.
As it is now, the files can't be used by external users.
Any advise?
Thanks,
Rex
