Importance of Trusted Domains And Collaboration in Google Ecosystem

Collaboration and information sharing are crucial for companies, organizations, and individual users in today's linked world. The necessity for smooth sharing alternatives grows as digital technologies advance, particularly when it comes to sharing material with people who might not be a member of the Google ecosystem. This is where "Visitor Sharing" enters the picture.

The operation of visitor sharing

Similar to Google users, users may share with visitors. In addition to a PIN for identification verification, visitors receive an email invitation to cooperate. For seven days following verification, they can browse, modify, or comment on the item. They can re-verify their identification using the original connection if they need to work together after this time.

When visitor sharing is enabled

• Files shared with visitors may be viewed, commented on, edited, and suggested changes using Drive on the web.
• Visitors can access files and folders on shared drives that your users have access to. Within the shared folders, visitors have the ability to create and upload files. They cannot be added to the shared drive as members.
• A visitor can share a file with another Google user but not with another visitor if they have edit access to it.
• Files cannot be accessed by visitors on mobile devices or in clients that have been downloaded, such as Google Drive for desktop.
• In order to erase their name from the document history and any comments they made, visitors can choose to delete their session.
• As with any other contributor, sessions in a shared file can be viewed, modified, or their access removed.

Activate visitor sharing.

1. Your existing admin@appsforwork.org account. Make sure you are logged into an administrator account in order to proceed.

 2. Select Menu Apps -> Google Workspace -> Drive and Docs in the Admin panel.

3. Click Sharing settings ->Sharing options.

4. (Selective) Choose an organizational unit (often used for departments) or configuration group (advanced) at the side to apply the option solely to specific users.

 Organizational units are superseded by group settings.

5. To restrict visitor sharing to domains that are trusted:

• If you haven't previously, add those domains to the list of trusted domains for your company.
• Select Allowlisted Domains.
• Check Allow users or shared drives in your organization to share items with people outside your organization who aren't using a Google account.

The "Incompatible with whitelisted domains" notice can be safely ignored. Users are still able to share within the trusted domain.

 6. To permit visitors to share with anybody:

• Click "On."
• Check Allow users or shared drives in your organization to share items with people outside your organization who aren't using a Google account.

7. (Optional) Select Warn when files belonging to users or shared drives in your organization are shared outside of your organization to alert users before they share with someone outside of your company.

8. Choose Recipients only, recommended target audience, or public (no Google account needed) for Access Checker.

9. Select "Save."

Convert a visitor session to an account on Google Workspace

 You may upgrade a user's guest session to a Google Workspace account as an administrator. Using the same email address as the visitor session, you register for a Google Workspace account. The cooperation history of the visitor session, including revisions and comments made on documents, is preserved during this process.

 Note: A visitor session cannot be converted to a Google Group. The visitor session is erased if an administrator uses an email address associated with a visitor session to create a Google Group.

How a visitor becomes a Google Account holder

• The visitor must first erase their visitor session in order to upgrade from a visitor session to a Google Account using the same email address. After that, customers have the option to register for Google Workspace or make a Google Account.

Recognized problems and restrictions

• The visitor's account may be displayed in the account switcher on certain websites that need a Google sign-in. Visitors can only access Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites, even if they are logged in.
• The visitor can only be granted contributor access when people share a folder on a shared drive with them. A shared drive's root folder is inaccessible to visitors. It is not possible to update in Sites or add visitors to a group in Google Groups. They may, nonetheless, be a site's Published Viewers.
• You can limit visitor sharing if you limit sharing with personal Google Accounts in your company. An error warning will appear if you (or one of your users) attempt to share with these accounts.
• Folders cannot be downloaded by a visitor.