SOLVED

Users are unable to Request files. Error "cannot create the file request. "Anyone links with ...""

Steel Contributor

Inside our users OneDrive , users will receive the following error when they try to share a folder:-

 

fodler.png

 

so i am not sure which setting inside OneDrive will allow this feature?

15 Replies

@john john An admin may have limited sharing in the organisation, there are various settings to control what type of sharing is allowed for both SharePoint and OneDrive, this can be configured here per the article below, this is also configurable on a user basis:

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/sharepoint/turn-external-sharing-on-or-off 

 

Based on the screenshot it looks like Anyone sharing links hasn't been permitted.  It may be possible to share with guests instead via an email address instead but this depends on how external sharing has been configured. 

@Cian Allnerseems things are interconnected together, now in our case we are only allowing certain people to share to external users. so if i define to allow "Anyone with the link " will users be able to request a file with external users? or they should be inside this group "Who can share outside your organization?:-

one1.png

 

and can i keep my above setting as is, and only allow one OneDrive site to have the option to  request with external users?

From the screenshot, those settings don't permit anyone links, otherwise known as anonymous access links.  The only sharing that is allowed is members of the blanked out-group who can share to guests (authenticated external users) using their email address.

 

To tweak this, yet still limiting it to a group, you could do something like this, allow anonymous links but only for a particular group:  

 

Sharing.png

 

@Cian Allnerok thanks a lot for the reply. so i have these 2 questions now:-

 

1. Will this settings apply to SharePoint sites as well as for OneDrive sites?

2. Also i still need to set the "File and folder links" to "Anyone with the link", is this correct?

defaultlinks.png

1) Yes that is my understanding but there are other factors for example, from here:

 

"Even if your organization-level setting allows external sharing, not all new sites allow it by default. The default sharing setting for Office 365 group-connected team sites is "New and existing guests." The default for communication sites and classic sites is "Only people in your organization."

 

Also, SharePoint sites can be configured individually - Turn external sharing on or off for a site.

 

2) No, that doesn't have to be changed, its the default type of link when sharing, which users can adjust as needed each time they share a resource, for example to an anyone link, if permitted by those other settings we have been discussing.   

best response confirmed by Sam Larson (Microsoft)
Solution

Hey Folks,

 

Here is our article on this feature, please let me know if further steps would be helpful here. 

 

Things to keep in mind.

  • OneDrive and SharePoint settings can be set individually via the admin center or Power Shell. 
  • An administrator must enable Anyone links in OneDrive for file requests to work.
  • I'd highly suggest using our new admin center(s) to change Sharing policies or in this particular instance navigate to https://admin.onedrive.com/?v=SharingSettings
    • Here you can change the link setting to allow the feature to work properly.
    • See screenshot attachment

Let me know if you have questions or concerns. 

 

Regards,

 

Sam

@Sam Larson 

ok thanks a lot for the reply.i have these 4 questions, if you can please advice on them:-

 

1. So the setting inside the screen shot you showed, will affect all users' one drive sites?

2. If the answer is Yes, then can i allow this on some one drive sites only?

3. Will this setting (which you showed inside the screen shot) affect our existing SharePoint sites?

4. Inside our share point external sharing we are restricting sharing with external users to a specific group of users (through "Who can share outside your org") as follow:-

  1. one1.pngone1.png

 

so does this affect one drive also? so even if i allow File Request indie One Drive admin enter, the user must be inside the above group?

 

Thanks

@john john Please see answers inline. 

 

1. So the setting inside the screen shot you showed, will affect all users' one drive sites? There were 2 settings I highlighted in my screenshot. 1 setting was for changing the "Advanced settings for Shareable links" - Folder settings to "View,Edit and Upoad". The other being the slider which controls respective SharePoint and One Drive general sharing settings. These can differ from each other however your settings for OneDrive sites cannot be more permissive than the setting for SharePoint sites.

2. If the answer is Yes, then can i allow this on some one drive sites only? You can configure many different sharing settings individually on ODB sites via PowerShell and the Set-SPOSite cmdlet. However , for the one mentioned above "Folder" permissions , you currently cannot control that setting individually on sites , it has to be a global setting for all sites. 

3. Will this setting (which you showed inside the screen shot) affect our existing SharePoint sites? The Folder setting , yes. The slider is only for ODB sites. 

4. Inside our share point external sharing we are restricting sharing with external users to a specific group of users (through "Who can share outside your org") as follow:so does this affect one drive also? so even if i allow File Request indie One Drive admin enter, the user must be inside the above group? Correct

@Sam Larsonok thanks a lot for the detailed reply and valuable information. the confusion we get is that when you access the OneDrive admin center, you will see SharePoint settings also, and when you access SharePoint admin center you will also get settings for OneDrive..

so since in our case some users want to request files inside their OneDrive, so there is no way to avoid the following:-

1. i have to move the External Sharing slider for SharePoint and for onedrive to allow Anyone. i can not keep our SharePoint external setting as "New and Existing users", is this correct?

2. the SharePoint site will also need to get "View,Edit and upload" for their folders? is this correct?

3. now if i move the slider to Anyone for both SharePoint and onedrive will this affect existing SharePoint and one drive sites? or this setting will only allow us to open some SharePoint sites and onedrvie sites for File Request?

4. in our case most of the SharePoint sites grant users contribute permission and we disable the ability to share the site, as follow:-

access.png

 

so will changing the external setting to "Anyone" and the folder setting to "View,Edit and upload" for SharePoint allow those contributor to request files and folders with external users?

@john john 

1. i have to move the External Sharing slider for SharePoint and for onedrive to allow Anyone. i can not keep our SharePoint external setting as "New and Existing users", is this correct?- As OneDrive cannot be more permissive than SharePoint this would be correct.  One thing to note, you can still individually change site sharing settings from the Org settings depending on what exactly you are wanting to allow/restrict so this really depends on what you are trying to do. 

2. the SharePoint site will also need to get "View,Edit and upload" for their folders? is this correct? Correct, we cannot change this setting individually. 

3. now if i move the slider to Anyone for both SharePoint and onedrive will this affect existing SharePoint and one drive sites? or this setting will only allow us to open some SharePoint sites and onedrvie sites for File Request? It will affect all existing sites . 

4. in our case most of the SharePoint sites grant users contribute permission and we disable the ability to share the site, as follow:-

so will changing the external setting to "Anyone" and the folder setting to "View,Edit and upload" for SharePoint allow those contributor to request files and folders with external users? Although we are rolling our File requests to SharePoint this is only available on OneDrive sites right now where this setting is rarely changed. That being said, this particular setting is only for Sharing the site/folders so this will not affect File requests. 

 

Hope this all makes sense!

@Sam Larson 

ok thanks again for your clarifications, i added my questions to your points:-

 

 It will affect all existing sites

so let say i have a SharePoint site which does not allow external sharing, and i move the External sharing slider to Anyone, then this SharePoint site will allow sharing with external users automatically?

 

Although we are rolling our File requests to SharePoint this is only available on OneDrive sites right now where this setting is rarely changed. That being said, this particular setting is only for Sharing the site , not individually folders and files so this will not affect File requests. 

now in our case we always prevent members from sharing the site or file by de-selecting everything inside the Access Requests settings, as follow:-

access.png

 

as sharing the files will cause them to have unique permissions and which will result in having a maintenance problem for large document libraries and lists. so you are saying even if we are preventing members from sharing sites and folder and files by de-selecting the above checkboxes, then members will be able to Request files (i am talking when this feature will be rolled out for SharePoint).. i think MS need to review this,,, as some sites need to be managed and files should not be shared by individual members...

@john john 

It will affect all existing sites

so let say i have a SharePoint site which does not allow external sharing, and i move the External sharing slider to Anyone, then this SharePoint site will allow sharing with external users automatically?

No - This will still be dependent on whatever the site setting is by default or if that has been changed. The default site settings can be found here

 

Now , if you have it enabled and turn off sharing completely (via the slider) then it will indeed force turn off sharing for all sites regardless of individual site settings. 

 

Although we are rolling our File requests to SharePoint this is only available on OneDrive sites right now where this setting is rarely changed. That being said, this particular setting is only for Sharing the site , not individually folders and files so this will not affect File requests. 

 

now in our case we always prevent members from sharing the site or file by de-selecting everything inside the Access Requests settings, as follow:-

 

as sharing the files will cause them to have unique permissions and which will result in having a maintenance problem for large document libraries and lists. so you are saying even if we are preventing members from sharing sites and folder and files by de-selecting the above checkboxes, then members will be able to Request files (i am talking when this feature will be rolled out for SharePoint).. i think MS need to review this,,, as some sites need to be managed and files should not be shared by individual members...

 

- As of right now , yes you would still be able to Request Files if this was checked/unchecked. I'm not fully sure I understand why this setting would be expected to affect File Requests as you aren't actually sharing any files to any other users , you are requesting a user to upload files to that folder. The user that receives the request cannot see any other folders/file structure outside of the file request so in that sense I wouldn't consider this a share . Please let me know if i'm missing something here and would be happy to help and consider implementing.

 

We have also heard a lot of feedback around hiding this feature and are looking into that as an option. 

@Sam Larsonthanks for the reply. but if someone request a folder, will this result in having this folder unique permissions?

second question when you say "We have also heard a lot of feedback around hiding this feature and are looking into that as an option. " you are talking about Request files in general or about rolling this for SharePoint?

Thanks

 

@john john 

@Sam Larsonthanks for the reply. but if someone request a folder, will this result in having this folder unique permissions?

 - Correct, just like when you create a sharing link for a folder this would break inheritance from the parent to allow access. 

second question when you say "We have also heard a lot of feedback around hiding this feature and are looking into that as an option. " you are talking about Request files in general or about rolling this for SharePoint?

- Request files feature in general, for both ODB and SharePoint 

@Sam Larson  The powershell commands at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/enable-file-requests do not work and give me an error message. The settings in the admin centre are correct, the "request files" link shows up in OneDrive but not in SharePoint.

 

Error message.png

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Sam Larson (Microsoft)
Solution

Hey Folks,

 

Here is our article on this feature, please let me know if further steps would be helpful here. 

 

Things to keep in mind.

  • OneDrive and SharePoint settings can be set individually via the admin center or Power Shell. 
  • An administrator must enable Anyone links in OneDrive for file requests to work.
  • I'd highly suggest using our new admin center(s) to change Sharing policies or in this particular instance navigate to https://admin.onedrive.com/?v=SharingSettings
    • Here you can change the link setting to allow the feature to work properly.
    • See screenshot attachment

Let me know if you have questions or concerns. 

 

Regards,

 

Sam

View solution in original post