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Collaborate with Guests in a SharePoint Online Site A Complete Guide

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SharePoint Online is a powerful platform for secure collaboration—not just within your organization, but also with external partners, vendors, and clients. One of the most valuable features is the ability to collaborate with guests (external users) seamlessly while maintaining governance and control.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the essentials of enabling, managing, and optimizing guest collaboration in SharePoint Online.

🔐 What Is Guest Access in SharePoint Online?

Guest access allows you to share your SharePoint content (sites, libraries, lists, documents) with external users who are not part of your Microsoft 365 tenant. These guests authenticate using their own work, school, or personal Microsoft accounts, or via one-time passcodes.

This feature is ideal when collaborating with:

  • Contractors
  • Customers
  • Partners
  • Freelancers

✅ Prerequisites: What Needs to Be Set Up?

Before inviting guests, ensure the following settings are properly configured:

1. Enable External Sharing in Microsoft 365 Admin Center

  • Go to Microsoft 365 Admin Center > Settings > Org settings > Security & privacy > Sharing.
  • Ensure that external sharing is allowed at the organization level.

2. Enable External Sharing in SharePoint Admin Center

  • Go to the SharePoint Admin Center > Policies > Sharing.
  • Choose the appropriate sharing level (e.g., “New and existing guests”).

3. Configure Site-Level Sharing Settings

  • For each SharePoint site, navigate to Site Permissions > Change how members can share.
  • Choose whether the site allows sharing with new guests, existing guests, or only internal users.

👥 How to Invite a Guest to a SharePoint Site

Here’s how site owners can invite a guest user:

  1. Navigate to the SharePoint site.
  2. Click on the Gear icon > Site Permissions.
  3. Select Invite people > Add members to group.
  4. Enter the guest’s email address.
  5. Choose whether to add them as a Member (edit permissions) or Visitor (read-only).
  6. The guest will receive an invitation email with access instructions.

🎯 Pro Tip: Add guests to a Microsoft 365 Group associated with the site for better collaboration via Teams and Outlook.

📁 What Can Guests Access?

Depending on their permissions, guests can:

  • View or edit documents
  • Upload files
  • Collaborate on Office documents in real time
  • Participate in discussions via Teams (if integrated)
  • Access lists, pages, and libraries

They cannot:

  • Create new SharePoint sites
  • View content not explicitly shared with them
  • Access Power Automate flows unless granted

🔒 Security and Best Practices

To ensure secure collaboration:

  • Use expiration policies for guest access.
  • Review guest access regularly via Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD).
  • Leverage Sensitivity Labels and Information Protection.
  • Set conditional access policies for external users.

🔍 Admins can audit external sharing via Microsoft Purview (Audit and Compliance Center).

🚫 How to Remove Guest Access

If a guest no longer requires access:

  1. Go to Microsoft Entra Admin Center.
  2. Navigate to Users > External users.
  3. Locate and delete or block sign-in for the guest.

You can also remove them from individual SharePoint sites via Site Permissions.

🧩 Bonus: Collaborate via Teams + SharePoint

If your SharePoint site is connected to a Microsoft Team, guests can:

  • Access documents through the Files tab
  • Chat and call within the Team
  • Receive real-time notifications and updates

This unified experience makes cross-organization collaboration smooth and intuitive.

Collaborating with guests in SharePoint Online opens up a world of flexibility and productivity. With the right configuration and governance, your team can securely work with external stakeholders without leaving the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.