awork Connect - Invite Your External Partners

With awork Connect, you bridge the gap between your project team and your external partners by sharing your project simply, directly, and for free with external people. Invite them with awork Connect to collaborate on your project and you're good to go - whether they're agencies, clients, or freelancers.

🪢 Are you an external partner? Then check out the awork Connect article for external users here.

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How does awork Connect work?

An external user gets access to a project from another workspace. Once they accept the invitation, the shared project appears directly in the external person's workspace. For this to work, the invited person needs to either have an existing workspace or set up a free awork Connect workspace. The invitation contains all the necessary information to get started smoothly.

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How to invite external people

What invitation methods are available?

You can invite external people in four ways:

1. Project Home: via the Add or remove team members -> Invite external users icon
2. Project Home: via the Connect button in the top right
3. Project Home: via the Action button -> Assign members -> Invite external users
4. In the project settings under Assigned users -> + Add -> Invite external users

💡 Tip: If you've already invited an external person to another project, they'll be automatically suggested as soon as you type the first letters of their email address.

What happens after the invitation?

The external user receives an invitation via email along with information about how to proceed. After accepting the invitation, the person appears in the project settings under "Assigned users". From there, you can assign or change a project-specific permission role.

You can invite as many external people to a project as you like. Once they accept the invitation, they'll be visible in the project. If the invitation isn't accepted within three days, the external person automatically receives a reminder email. Once the invitation is accepted, the person who sent it gets an email notification.

Control external invitations - Enable/disable Connect in the workspace

• Under Settings -> General you'll find the "Allow inviting external people to projects (Connect)" button.
• If you disable this button:
  • Existing external connections remain active.
  • However, new invitations are not possible.
• You can enable the feature again at any time.

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Set trusted workspaces

Workspace admins can mark external workspaces as trusted partners so that Connect invitations from these workspaces are automatically accepted.

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Managing and collaborating with external people

Where can I find an overview of external people?

In the general workspace settings, there's a "Connect" menu item. There you'll find a list of all external people in your workspace, including information about which project they belong to and when they were last active. Via the three-dot menu next to a person, you can directly open the project or remove the person from it. The list can be sorted and grouped by last activity, project, or user. You can use the search field to search by name, email address, project, or workspace.

What can I do with external people in the project?

When a project is shared with an external person, you can assign them to tasks within that project. You can also mention them in the activity log both in the project itself and in project tasks. When external people make changes, such as changing a task's status, you'll receive notifications according to your account settings, just like usual.

What's not possible with external people?

• They don't appear in the "Users" menu item, only in the Connect overview in settings.
• They cannot be selected in the Planner (workload and calendar).
• They cannot be added to Teams.
• It's not possible to share task filters with them.
• They cannot be used in task, project, and time report filters.
• In Automations they cannot be selected directly as individual users - however, selection via their project-specific permission role is possible.
• They cannot independently schedule tasks from shared projects into the calendar or planner.

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Rights management

Permission roles for external users

An external person always automatically receives a project-specific permission role (defined specifically for external users) for the shared project.

The person's general permission role in their own workspace doesn't matter because access only affects this one shared project, and the workspace where the project was created determines the permissions.

Set and change roles for external users

When creating a new project-specific permission role, you can specify whether this role applies to external users. This setting is final and cannot be undone.

Edit rights for external people cannot be granted in the project details.

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Hide content from external people

What content can be hidden?

You can make either entire task lists or individual comments invisible to external people. This lets you maintain clear internal communication without having to switch to additional tools.

To hide a comment, activate the button with the eye icon in the comment field. When the button is active, it appears with a red background and the comment is not visible to external people.

If you want to share the comment again, you can edit it and deactivate the button.

Show or hide entire task lists

If you want to hide a complete task list, open the three-dot menu of the list and select "Hide from external users". A note will appear above the list indicating it's hidden. To make the list visible again, click on the menu and select "Show to external users". The note will then disappear.

Can I make only individual tasks visible?

It's possible to completely hide tasks from external people so they only see tasks they're directly assigned to. To do this, set in the project-specific permission role that external users don't have general task rights. The external person will then only see assigned tasks in the "My tasks" tab and can access them via the "My tasks" task filter.

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FAQ

Can I invite my own employees to my projects via awork Connect?

It's not possible to invite users with the same email domain via awork Connect. awork Connect is designed to collaborate with external users. Internal users need to have a license in your workspace. The domain of the workspace creators is decisive for the check.

Are there valid reasons why you'd like to invite your employees to your projects via awork Connect? If so, feel free to contact our support team. We'll review your request individually.

Can I use awork Connect during the 14-day trial period?

Yes, awork Connect can be tested without restrictions during the free trial period.

What happens when the trial period or subscription ends?

If the trial period or subscription of the inviting workspace ends, the external person sees a notice box in the project. They can continue to create tasks and change their status, but project-level comments are temporarily not possible. Once the workspace is active again on a paid plan, the notice box disappears and project-level commenting is allowed again.

How do I identify external users in the workspace?

The workspace logo of external users is displayed in the bottom right corner of their profile picture. All project members can see the external person.

Can a person with a full awork license be migrated to an external person?

No, internal users cannot be converted to Connect users.

How does awork Connect work if, for example, clients haven't used awork yet?

Clients receive an email invitation and are then asked to register with awork and create their own workspace, where the shared project will be displayed.

What happens to previous guest licenses?

Previously, you could add external people as guests. This feature has been replaced by awork Connect. Existing guests can be migrated to external users. You can find more information about this in a separate article.

Can external people access the planner?

Yes, but they only see themselves as a user and only the shared project and their own projects. They cannot plan any tasks or projects.

Is awork Connect automatically available to me or do I need to add it?

awork Connect is available to every awork customer regardless of their plan. Nothing needs to be added and there are no extra costs.

Can the external person see all other users in the shared project?

Yes, external users can see all project members.

Do automations work with external people?

External people themselves cannot be selected as individual users in the automation. However, selection of external users is possible via the project-specific permission role.

Can external people be considered in API integrations?

External people are listed when creating integrations via our API and can thus be selected. They are also marked as "external".

Can I share unlimited projects with an external person?

You can invite external people to any number of projects.

Where are the external person's hours recorded?

The hours are recorded in the workspace where the shared project was originally created. This corresponds to the inviting workspace.

Can the external person view their recorded hours in their own workspace under "Time reports"?

The external person sees their own hours in the left menu under "Time", but not in the time reports.

Can other users record time for external users?

No, only external users themselves can record their own time. Other users cannot create time entries for Connect users.

How is data protection ensured?

We can guarantee data protection because external users are not connected to the entire workspace, but really only to the project.

Does it cost anything to integrate external users into the workspace?

No, awork Connect is included as a feature in all plans and causes no additional costs.

Who can invite external people?

People who have edit rights on projects can add external people to projects.