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 their workspace. The prerequisite is that the invited person already has an existing workspace or alternatively sets up a free awork Connect workspace. The invitation contains all the necessary information to get started smoothly.

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Inviting External People - How does it work?

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 user icon
2. Project Home: via the Connect button in the top right
3. Project Home: via the Action button → Assign members → Invite external user
4. In the project settings under Assigned Users → + Add → Invite external user

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

After the invitation - What happens next?

The external user receives an invitation via email along with information on how to use it. After accepting the invitation, the person appears in the project settings under "Assigned Users". There you can assign or change a project-specific permission role.

You can invite as many external people as you want to a project. Once they accept the invitation, they become 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.

Managing external invitations - Enable/disable Connect in the workspace

• Under Settings → General you'll find the button "Allow inviting external people to projects (Connect)".
• 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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Setting up trusted workspaces

Workspace admins can designate external workspaces as trusted partners so that Connect invitations from those 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 menu item called "Connect". 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 the project. The list can be sorted and grouped by last activity, project, or user. Using the search field, you can search specifically by name, email address, project, or workspace.

What can I do 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 both in the project itself and in the project tasks. When the external person makes changes, such as changing the status of a task, you'll be notified according to your account settings as 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 can't be selected in the Planner (workload and calendar).
• They can't be added to teams.
• It's not possible to share task filters with them.
• They can't be used in task, project, and time tracking filters.
• In automations they can't be selected directly as a user - however, selection via their project-specific permission role is possible.
• They can't independently schedule tasks from shared projects in 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 general permission role of the person 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.

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 can't be undone.

Edit permissions for external people can't be granted in the project details.

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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 allows you to 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 make the comment visible again, you can edit it and deactivate the button.

Showing or hiding 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 then appears above the list indicating it's hidden. To make the list visible again, click the menu again and select "Show to external users". The note then disappears.

Can I make only individual tasks visible?

It's possible to hide tasks completely 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 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 staff to my projects via awork Connect?

It's 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 creator is the deciding factor.

Are there valid reasons why you want to invite your staff 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 phase?

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

How do I recognize 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 can't be converted to Connect users.

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

The clients receive an invitation via email and are then asked to register with awork and create their own workspace where the shared project is displayed.

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 can't plan 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. The option Allow inviting external people to projects must be enabled in workspace settings (admin permissions are required).

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 can't be selected as individual users in the automation. However, selecting 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 therefore also be selected. They're also marked as "external".

Can I share as many projects as I want with an external person?

You can invite external people to as many projects as you want.

Where are the external person's time entries recorded?

The time is recorded in the workspace where the shared project was initially created. This corresponds to the inviting workspace.

Can the external person view their recorded time in their own workspace under "Time tracking"?

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

Can other users record time for external users?

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

How is data protection ensured?

We can guarantee data protection because external users aren't connected to the entire workspace, 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 to projects can add external people to projects.