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.
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. 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 ensure a smooth onboarding process.
How to invite external people?
What invitation options are available?
You can invite external people in four ways:
- Project Home: via the Add or remove team members - Invite external user icon
- Project Home: via the Connect button in the top right
- Project Home: via the Action button - Assign members - Invite external user
- In the project settings under Assigned users - + Add - Invite external user
☝️ Note: You cannot add external people during project creation. You need to create the project first.
💡 Tip: If you've already invited an external person to another project, they'll be automatically suggested to you as soon as you type the first letters of their email address.
After the invitation - What happens next?
The external user receives an invitation via email along with information about further usage. After accepting the invitation, the person appears in the project settings under "Assigned users". There you can assign a project-specific permission role or change it later.
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 - Activate or deactivate Connect in the workspace
- Under Settings - General, you'll find the button "Allow inviting external people to projects (Connect)".
- If you deactivate 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 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. 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?
When 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 project tasks. If 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 is not possible with external people?
- They don't appear in the "User" 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's not possible to share task filters with them.
- In task, project, and time report filters, they cannot be used.
- 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 in the calendar or planner.
Rights management
Permission roles for external users
An external person always receives a project-specific permission role automatically (defined specifically for external users) for the shared project.
The person's general permission role in their own workspace is irrelevant because access concerns only 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 should apply to external users. This setting is permanent and cannot be undone.
In the 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 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.
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 appears above the list indicating that it's hidden. To make the list visible again, click the menu again 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 that 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 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's not possible to invite users with the same email domain via awork Connect. awork Connect is designed for collaborating with external users. Internal users must have a license in your workspace. The domain of the workspace creator is decisive for the comparison.
Are there valid reasons why you want to invite your employees to your projects via awork Connect? In that case, 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 tried out 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 commenting at the project level is 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 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 cannot be converted to Connect users.
How does awork Connect work if, for example, customers haven't used awork yet?
Customers receive an invitation via email and are then asked to register with awork and create their own workspace where the shared project will appear.
What happens to existing 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 people. 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 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 plan. There's nothing to add and no extra costs.
Does 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 therefore also be selected. They're 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 hours recorded?
The hours 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 hours in their own workspace under "Time reports"?
The external person sees their own hours in the menu on the left under "Time", but not in time reports.
Can other users record hours 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 doesn't cause any additional costs.
Who can invite external people?
People who have edit rights on projects can add external people to projects.
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