Its possible to use SharePoint site for External users?

Question

If i shared a SharePoint online site with external users(Gmail,Hotmail or organizational account) its possible to access the site without creating the Microsoft account?

I have tried with gmail and Organizational account its asking me to create new Microsoft account with gmail or Organizational account.

So My Confusion is if we are sharing a SharePoint site or list Item to external users,to access the shared site the users must have a Microsoft account ?can anyone give me a glance on this.Thank you

Answer 1

You can Share your SharePoint Online site to two different users

1. Organizational Account - Which means who has a valid office 365 license, they can use the option called Organizational account
2. Personal Account - Which means who doesn't have a valid office 365 license users like Gmail, Yahoo and etc,.

So here who doesn't have office 365 license, they need to associate their personal email ID to Microsoft Account, then only Microsoft can authenticate the Gmail and Yahoo users to use the Microsoft product

You can use this link to associate your gmail or yahoo to Microsoft Account

Answer 2

There are couple of things you have to understand. There is basically multiple type of sharing:

• Anyone Users can create shareable links that don't require sign-in.
• New and existing external users External users must sign in.
• Existing external users Only users already in your organization's directory.
• Only people in your organization No external sharing allowed.

Anyone option is when you dont want user to sign-in (in that scenario you have to share a link of that item). But you can not share the site in this option.

If you asked for sign-up then your user should have the one of the stuff

• Office 365 account from any company
• Windows Live ID
• or if they have non Microsoft ids then simply associate it with windows live id system.

The Definitive Guide to Office 365 External Sharing