Collaborate with guests on a SharePoint site

Collaborate with guests on a SharePoint site

If you need to collaborate with guests on documents, data, and lists, you can use a SharePoint site. Modern SharePoint sites are connected to Microsoft 365 Groups and can manage site membership and provide additional collaboration tools such as a shared mailbox and calendar.

In this article, we’ll walk through the Microsoft 365 setup steps required to set up a SharePoint site for guest collaboration.

Azure External Collaboration Settings

Sharing in Microsoft 365 is governed at its highest level by the  B2B external collaboration settings in Azure Active Directory . If guest sharing is inactive or restricted in Azure AD, this setting overrides the sharing settings you configure in Microsoft 365.

Check your B2B external collaboration settings to ensure guest sharing is enabled.

To set external collaboration settings

1. Sign in to Azure Active Directory at  https://aad.portal.azure.com .
2. In the left navigation pane, click  Azure Active Directory .
3. Click on  External Identities .
4. On the Getting Started screen  , in the left navigation pane, click  External Collaboration Settings .
5. Make sure that  Member users and users assigned to specific administrator roles can invite guest users, including guests with member permissions  or  All organization members can invite guest users, including guests and non-administrators  is active.
6. If you have made any changes, click  Save .

Note the settings in the  Collaboration Restrictions section . Make sure the domains of the guests you want to collaborate with are not blocked.

If you work with guests from multiple organizations, you may want to restrict their ability to access directory data. This prevents them from seeing who else is invited to the directory. To do this, under  Guest user access restrictions , select  Guest users have limited access to properties and membership settings of directory objects  or  Guest users have limited access to properties and membership settings of their own directory objects .

Microsoft 365 Groups Guest Settings

Modern SharePoint sites use Microsoft 365 Groups to control site access. Microsoft 365 Groups guest settings must be active for guest access in SharePoint sites to work.

To set guest settings for Microsoft 365 Groups

1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the left navigation pane, expand  Settings .
2. Click  Organization Settings .
3. In the list, click  Microsoft 365 Groups .
4. Make sure the  Allow group owners to add people outside your organization to Microsoft 365 Groups as guests  and  Allow invited group members to access group content check boxes  are active.
5. If you have made any changes, click  Save .

SharePoint Organization-Level Sharing Settings

For guests to have access to SharePoint sites, the sharing settings at the SharePoint organization level must allow sharing with guests.

Organization-level settings determine which settings will be available for individual sites. Site settings cannot be more permissive than organization-level settings.

If you want to allow unauthenticated file and folder sharing, choose  Everyone . If you want to ensure that everyone outside your organization must authenticate, choose  New and existing guests . Choose the most permissive setting that will be necessary for any site in your organization.

To set SharePoint sharing settings at the organization level

1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the left navigation pane, under  Administration centers , select  SharePoint .
2. In the SharePoint admin center, in the left navigation pane, under  Policies , select  Sharing .
3. Make sure the external sharing for SharePoint is  Everyone  or  New and Existing Guests .
4. If you have made any changes, select  Save .

Create a website

The next step is to create the site you plan to use to collaborate with guests.

To create a site

1. In the SharePoint Admin Center, under  Sites , select  Active sites .
2. Select  Create .
3. Select  Team Site .
4. Type a site name and enter a name for the group owner (site owner).
5. Under  Advanced Settings , choose whether you want this site to be public or private.
6. Select  Next .
7. Select  Finish .

We’ll invite users later. Next, it’s important to check the site-level sharing settings for this site.

SharePoint Site-Level Settings

Check the site-level sharing settings to ensure they allow the type of access you want for that site. For example, if you set the organization-level settings to  Everyone  , but you want all guests to authenticate for that site, make sure the site-level sharing settings are set to  New and existing guests .

Note that the site cannot be shared with unauthenticated people (  Everyone setting  ), but individual files and folders can.

You can also use  sensitivity labels to control external sharing settings for SharePoint sites .

To set site-level settings

1. In the SharePoint Admin Center, in the left navigation, expand  Sites , and then select  Active Sites .
2. Select the site you want to share.
3. Select …, then  Sharing .
4. Make sure sharing is enabled on  Everyone  or  New and Existing Guests .
5. If you have made any changes, select  Save .

Invite users

Your guest sharing settings are now in place, so you can start adding internal users and guests to your site. Since site access is controlled through the associated Microsoft 365 group, we’ll add users to it.

To invite internal users to a group

1. Go to the site where you want to add users.
2. Select  the Members link  in the upper right corner which shows the number of members.
3. Select  Add Members .
4. Type the names or email addresses of the users you want to invite to the site, then  select Save .

Guests can’t add themselves to the Microsoft 365 Group from the site. For more information about adding guests to a group, see  Adding guests to Microsoft 365 Groups.