Configuring SharePoint for External Access

Note A PDF file for end-to-end Azure/Entra configuration for both SMTP and M365 CDA can be found here: Configuring Azure For Process Director (PDF Download)

Important This topic discusses a product feature in active development, and is subject to change at any time.

Once you've configured Azure/Entra, and transmitted the appropriate information to BP Logix, you may need to make some changes to your SharePoint installation to enable its access for CDA, as a final step in this process. For some customers, this won't be necessary, since every user who accesses the documents for CDA will be valid, authenticated users of your Azure/Entra tenant. In many cases, however, you'll need to provide access to the documents for review or editing by users outside of your organization. In that case, you'll need to provide those external users with access to your SharePoint installation, to enable them to participate.

To do so, you'll first need to go to admin.microsoft.com to access your Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Once the admin center main page opens, you'll need to click the Show All menu item that appears in the sidebar on the left side of the page. Clicking this item will expand the sidebar to show additional menu items.

When the new menu items appear, you'll need to scroll down to the Admin Centers section, and select the SharePoint menu item.

Clicking the SharePoint menu item will open a new browser tab to display the SharePoint Admin Center. On the left sidebar of the page, you'll need to click the Sites menu to expand it, then select the Active Sites menu item.

Clicking Active Sites will display the Active Sites page, listing all of your currently active SharePoint sites. Find the Web site in the list of sites, and click on it to select and expand it. When you do so, an informational pane for the selected site will appear on the right side of the page.

In the informational pane, a series of tabs will be displayed, just below the header information and logo. You'll need to click the Settings tab to display its contents.

In the Settings tab, select either Anyone or New and existing guests from the External file sharing property options. You must choose one of these options to enable external sharing to users from outside of your organization. There are different security implications for each item. New and existing guests is a more secure option that verifies external users by sending a one-time password (OTP) to their email address. While more secure, some organizations may find this too cumbersome for their use-case. The Anyone selection enables access to documents without the additional OTP verification. Irrespective of which option you choose, it will require specially crafted URLs to access individual documents. You'll need to refer to Microsoft’s SharePoint documentation for more information about that.

Once you've set the desired External file sharing property option, you can click the Save button to save it. Once saved, the appropriate external users will be able to access the documents they need to access when participating in the editing/collaboration process.

This step, combined with the changes made to your Process Director installation, should fully enable M365 for use with the product's CDA feature.

Other M365 CDA Configuration Topics

M365 CDA Overview

M365 CDA Configuration Process