This document provides instructions for sharing documents from OneDrive with guests (people outside the organization). It describes two scenarios: 1) Sharing with a guest who has a Microsoft account, and 2) Sharing with someone who needs to create a Microsoft account. The document explains how to share a document by creating a link and emailing it to the guest. It then describes the steps guests would take to access the document, whether signing in with an existing Microsoft account or creating a new one using their email address.

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Contents
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................... 2
What’s a Guest? ........................................................................................................................................... 3
What’s a Microsoft Account? ....................................................................................................................... 4
How to share a document with a Guest ....................................................................................................... 5
How does the Guest open the document? .................................................................................................. 8
If the Guest already has a Microsoft account. ......................................................................................... 8
If the Guest doesn’t have a Microsoft account ...................................................................................... 10

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Overview
This document explains how to share a document from OneDrive with people outside of your
Organization, also known as a Guests. It’s a step by step guide that shows two scenarios:
1. Sharing with a guest that already has a Microsoft account.
2. Sharing with someone who doesn’t have a Microsoft account and needs to create one.
In the next sections, we’ll define what’s meant by Guest and Microsoft account.

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What’s a Guest?
In Office 365 a Guest is a person who’s not a member of your organization. They don’t login to your
organizations services to get their email or documents.
A Guest might be working in a partner organization or service provider. You might want to share a
document with them, so they can read and review it. Or they might be someone contributing to some
work you’re doing, and you want them to work on the document with you.
Either way, a Guest is someone that can naturally see your document. You need to give them access and
send them a link to it.
Sharing a document with a Guest has benefits over attaching it to an email. Emailing an attachment means
you now have more than one version of the document. Any changes made to the version will somehow
have to be merged together with other versions later.
Sharing allows you to keep a single version of the document, that can be viewed and updated by anyone
who has access. And if it’s updated, everyone you’ve already shared with will see the updates.

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What’s a Microsoft Account?
A Microsoft account is a username and password provided by a Microsoft service on the internet. It could
be one created by services like outlook.com, xbox.com or hotmail.com.
It could also be an account hosted in Office 365, which is also known as an Organizational Account. But
essentially, it’s just another account provided by Microsoft.
When you share a document with someone outside of your organization, that person must have a
Microsoft account, and sign in with the username and password to view or edit the document.
Accounts provided by other companies like Apples iCloud, or Googles Gmail, won’t work with Office 365.
If the person being shared with doesn’t have a Microsoft account, they’ll have to create one. This
document explains how to share and what the person being shared with must do to use the document.

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How to share a document with a Guest
This section shows you how to share a document with someone outside of Office 365 organization when
they already have a Microsoft account.
To share the document, you will create a ‘Send Link’ and email it to the Guest. When they click on it,
they will sign in, and get access to the document.
This guide starts from
OneDrive in a browser.
Open
https://portal.office.com
from any browser, and
choose the OneDrive tile
from the application
launcher.
You highlight the
document you want to
share.

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Choose the Share button.
The Send Link dialog box
drops down.
The you drop the menu
down where it says Only
People in Your
Organization with the
link can view and edit.
From the new menu
choose Specific People.
Where it says Enter a
name or email address
type the email address of
the person that you want
to share with.
When you press enter,
the email address will be
added to the list of
recipients.
Add more Guests by
typing an email address
where it says Add
another.
If you don’t want the
Guest to able to edit your
document, uncheck
Allow Editing.
Then choose Apply.

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You’re now ready to send
the link to your Guest.
Choose Send to email the
link.
You’ll see confirmation
that the link has been
sent.

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How does the Guest open the document?
This section shows you what the Guest sees when they receive the link to the document, and what they
must do to open it.
The first part describes what they need to do if they have a Microsoft account. The second part
describes what they do when they don’t have a Microsoft account.
If the Guest already has a Microsoft account.
So now let’s switch to the
Guest.
In this example, they’re
signed into outlook.com.
They receive an email
from noreply.
When they open the
email, they’ll see who
sent it and a link to open
the document.
In this example, the link
to the document is Sales
Invoice March.

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When they click on the
link, the first thing they
must do is sign in.
A described here, they
must have a Microsoft
account or an
Organizational account to
get access to the file.
They should choose
Microsoft Account.
In this example, because
they already signed into
outlook.com they will be
signed in to Office 365
and be taken straight to
the document where they
can view and edit it.

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If the Guest doesn’t have a Microsoft account
In this example, you, the
Guest has a Gmail
account and doesn’t have
a Microsoft account.
You’re signed into Gmail
and receive an email
from noreply.
This email has a link to
the document Sales
Invoice March in it.
Clicking on the link opens
a new page that asks
whether you’d like to sign
in with a Microsoft
account or an
Organizational account.
If you don’t have either of
those, you can create one
by choosing the Create a
Microsoft account… link.

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All you must do here is
type in an email address
and a password.
You should use the email
address and password of
the Gmail account that
you already have.
Even though you are
creating a Microsoft
account you can use your
existing email address.
To make sure that you
own the email address
you entered, Microsoft
sends you a code to that
address.
You need to go back to
your email account and
get the code.
In this example, using a
Gmail account, the code
is sent in an email from
the Microsoft account
team to the Gmail email
address.
Copy the security code.

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Paste in the code and
choose Next.
You will be taken through
to the document.