====== External Users ======

== last updated Mar 4, 2024 ==
## Overview

External users can be invited to create their own account on the appliance, with their own personal password, that allows files to be shared with them securely from the same appliance.  When creating a share link an internal user, a member of your [[server:organization|organization]],  will select the external user from the drop-down "Who can access". The external user, when they click the share link, will authenticate themselves by logging into the appliance own personal password.


<WRAP center round tip 100%>
External Users can participate in [[businessgroupsharing|Business Groups]] and can be authenticated users of [[filesharing|]].

</WRAP>

### Organization Administration

To manage the external users belonging to your organization, as the organization administrator navigate to the **Users** screen from your **Organization** dashboard. 

You will observe a second tab on this screen detailing the external users. From here you can see the external users belonging to your organization. You will be able to add and delete external users from here. When an external user is deleted, ownership of their files will be reassigned to the administrator of the organization. 

## Enabling External Users
### Prerequisites

The following are the prerequisites for the External Users feature:
  * Appliance setting: Business Groups must be enabled.
  * The Organization File Sharing Policy policy 'Business Groups' must be enabled.

### License Key

On-premises Access Anywhere customers, login with the ApplAdmin account. Navigate to:

**Settings > License Key**

From the License Key screen, if you see an external user quota with a value greater than zero then the feature is available for use.

###  Appliance Administrator

There are four required elements for enabling access for external users:

- Business Groups must be enabled.
- A special package denoted for External Users must be configured in Access Anywhere.
- Storage must be configured for the External Users if they will be allowed to upload files.  Appliance Default Storage must be used for this purpose. Appliance default storage can be configured by the appliance administrator on the Storage page which is accessed from the settings menu:

{{ ::appliance_default_storage.png?direct&400 |}}

- An allowed number of external users (greater than 0) must be configured within the standard organization package (not the External Users package) that is assigned to an organization that wants to use External User Collaboration.
- Under Organization > Policies > File Sharing Policy the option 'Business Groups' must be enabled.

To set up the External User package, navigate to the **Packages** screen. If you do not have a package yet for external users, the user interface will offer assistance to help you create one if your license key permits use of the feature. Follow the steps on screen to create the package. Note that there can only be one External User package per Access Anywhere installation.

<WRAP center round info 100%>
External users have access to a limited set of features, and the limited package options for external users reflect this.
</WRAP>
 

To set up the organization's package navigate back to the **Packages** screen. From here, you can set the **Max count of external users** for the package.

### Organization Administration

To manage the external users belonging to your organization, as the organization administrator navigate to the **Users** screen from your **Organization** dashboard. 

You will observe a second tab on this screen detailing the external users. From here you can see the external users belonging to your organization. You will be able to add and delete external users from here. When an external user is deleted, ownership of their files will be reassigned to the administrator of the organization.