awork Connect - Invite Your External Partners
With awork Connect, you close 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 all set - whether they're agencies, clients, or freelancers.
🪢 Are you an external partner? Then check out the awork Connect article for external users here.
How does awork Connect work?
An external user gets access to a project from another workspace. Once the invitation is accepted, the shared project appears directly in the external person's workspace. For this to work, the invited person must either have an existing workspace or set up a free awork Connect workspace. The invitation contains all the necessary information to ensure a smooth start.
Inviting external people - How does it work?
What invitation methods are available?
You can invite external people in four ways:
- Project Home: via the Add or remove team members icon > Invite external users
- Project Home: via the Connect button in the top right
- Project Home: via the Actions button > Assign members > Invite external users
- In the project settings under Assigned users > + Add > Invite external users
☝️Note: You cannot add external people during project creation. You must create the project first.
💡 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.
After the invitation - What happens next?
The external user receives an invitation email along with information on how to proceed. After accepting the invitation, the person appears in the project settings under "Assigned users". There you can assign or change their project-specific permission role.
You can invite as many external people as you want to a project. 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. After accepting the invitation, 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.
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. All external people in your workspace are listed there, 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 specifically by name, email address, project, or workspace.
What options do I have with external people in the project?
If a project is shared with an external person, you can assign them to tasks within the project. You can also mention them in the activity log in both the project itself and in project tasks. If the external person makes changes, such as changing a task's status, you'll be notified according to your account settings as usual.
What is not possible with external people?
- They don't appear in the "Users" menu item, only in the Connect overview in the settings.
- They cannot be selected in the Planner (workload and calendar).
- They cannot be added to Teams.
- It is 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 users - however, selection via their project-specific permission role is possible.
- They cannot independently schedule tasks from shared projects into the calendar or planner.
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 the access only concerns this one shared project, and the workspace in which the project was created determines the permissions.
Setting and changing roles for external users
When creating a new project-specific permission role, you can specify whether this role should apply to external users. This setting is final and cannot be undone.
In project details, edit rights cannot be granted to external people.
Hiding 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 highlighted in red and the comment is not visible to external people.
If you want to unhide the comment, 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 notice appears above the list indicating it's hidden. To make the list visible again, click the menu once more and select "Show for external users". The notice will then disappear.
Can I make only individual tasks visible?
It's possible to completely hide tasks from external people so they only see the tasks they're directly assigned to. To do this, set in the project-specific permission role that external users have no general task rights. The external person will then only see the assigned tasks in the "My tasks" tab and can access them via the "My tasks" task filter.
FAQ
Can I invite my own employees to my projects via awork Connect?
It is not possible to invite users with the same email domain via awork Connect. awork Connect is intended for collaborating with external users. Internal users must have a license in your workspace. The domain of the workspace creators is decisive for the comparison.
Do you have valid reasons why you'd like to invite your employees to your projects via awork Connect? In that case, feel free to contact our support. 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 commenting at the project level is allowed again.
How do I identify external users in the workspace?
The workspace logo of external users is displayed in the bottom right 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 invitation email and are then asked to register with awork and create their own workspace, where the shared project will be displayed.
What happens with existing guest licenses?
You used to be able to 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 schedule 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. You don't need to add anything 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 also 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 an integration via our API and can thus be selected. They are also marked as "external".
Can I share any number of projects with an external person?
You can invite external people to any number of projects.
Where are the external person's times recorded?
The times are recorded in the workspace where the shared project was initially created. This corresponds to the inviting workspace.
Can the external person view their recorded times in their own workspace under "Time reports"?
The external person sees their own times in the left menu under "Times", but not in the time reports.
Can other users record times 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 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 incurs no additional costs.
Who can invite external people?
People who have edit rights to projects can add external people to projects.
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