New in ShareGate: Review external shares in the end-user app

Now team and group owners can easily review external shares and guest accesses in the app, collaborating with other users with agility and security.

Microsoft 365 is about building the best possible employee experiences through collaboration. That’s why we at ShareGate believe in self-service so much: it enables coworkers to interact with agility via Microsoft 365 without the hassle of going through IT for every little task. 

That’s also why ShareGate launched its end-user app where people can create and manage their own Microsoft teams from start to finish with total security, following the governance policies you set up. That way, IT has more time to make informed decisions and tackle more value-add, strategic projects, instead of dealing with endless ticket queues. 

And now, end users can do even more in the app with the release of our external sharing review feature. Let’s take a look!

Introducing External Sharing Review in ShareGate’s end-user app

ShareGate’s external sharing review allows team and group owners to review their team’s externally shared links and guests whenever they want right on the app, in an easy, straightforward way.

Easily delete external sharing links

External link sharing is one of the biggest, most common security risks in Microsoft 365 environments since it can lead to data leaks and unapproved parties accessing your information. So, being able to quickly act on potential issues is central to any efficient Teams management strategy. 

With ShareGate’s external sharing review, owners now have the control and flexibility to delete links that should no longer be shared, right on the end-user app. They have the flexibility to do the reviews whenever they want—without having to wait for the chatbot notification.

Make sure only the right guests have access 

When IT admins or owners manage Teams manually, it’s common to see guests with access to teams they should have been excluded from a long time ago. Through ShareGate’s end-user app, though, team and group owners can now revoke guest access in just a couple of clicks, ensuring their environments are securely kept to the right people only. 

How to get your users started 

If you still haven’t automated external sharing in your organization, your first step could be, even before adopting the end-user app, getting people familiarized with completing their reviews manually. To do that, you can manually select specific teams or groups for which you want its owners to review external shared links and guests, via chatbot or email notifications. Once owners are familiarized with the concept, you can move on to enabling the automatic reviews through the app and then set the frequency so that all owners are automatically asked to complete a review at a set time. 

To make all this happen, it’s crucial to have a strategy for communicating these changes with your end users. Ensuring they’re well-informed and well-equipped to find information is vital to adoption (and keeping your ticket queues small). Check out this end-user communication framework we created for maximizing Microsoft 365 adoption: we’re sure it will be a great help!

How to use the external sharing review

Here’s a step-by-step guide for you to run ShareGate’s external sharing review either in a single team or in bulk. Before you do it, just make sure you install the end-user app. Click here and learn how to do it. 

Review a single team 

In Microsoft Teams: 

1. Select the ShareGate app icon in Microsoft Teams from the left side of Teams
2. If you can’t find the ShareGate end-user app on the left side of Teams, use the three dots button
3. Select a team from the Teams you own
4. Select Review external shares on the team summary pane
5. Review your team’s inactive guests
6. If you wish to remove a guest from your team, select Remove access next to the desired entry
7. Select Next
8. Review your team’s external sharing links
9. If you wish to remove a link to an externally shared file, select Remove link next to the desired entry
10. Select Complete review and exit 

Review teams in bulk 

In Microsoft Teams: 

1. Select the ShareGate app icon in Microsoft Teams from the left side of Teams
2. If you can’t find the ShareGate end-user app on the left side of Teams, use the three dots button
3. From the Home tab, Review external shares
4. Have a look at the teams and content to review, then click Start review
5. Review your inactive guests
6. If you wish to remove a guest from your team, select Remove access next to the desired entry
7. Select Next
8. Review your external sharing links
9. If you wish to remove a link to an externally shared file, select Remove link next to the desired entry
10. Select Complete review and exit

Quick notes 

• When you review external shares in bulk, you’ll review all teams you own. 

• Your review choices won’t be saved or executed until you click Complete review and exit 
• If you remove the link to an externally shared file, the file won’t be deleted from your team. 
• The external sharing review in the app is on-demand, which means it is independent of the schedule set by the IT admin in Management. 

What else can owners do in the app?

Create and manage teams following business requirements  

Self-serve exists to make your Microsoft 365 environments more agile and collaborative—but not at the cost of security. That’s why ShareGate’s custom Teams provisioning templates give end users the freedom they need with your guardrails in place. 

Templates are automatically rolled out to end users through the app, so you can spend time optimizing your Teams governance policies rather than approving requests. On their end, users can easily create teams and manage the ones they own in one centralized workspace. (And they don’t even need a ShareGate account or license to do it.) 

New: Assigning themselves as Points of Contact 

Sometimes teams have many owners but only one actually manages it (maybe a couple of them). So, to help people better manage these kinds of teams, ShareGate’s end-user app now allows team owners to assign themselves as Points of Contacts: this way, admins and other users can identify who to contact for owner-related actions, like verifying inactive teams, adding a second owner, adding members and/or channels, or merging duplicate teams.

Self-service: a secure path to adoption

Enabling self-service is a surefire way for IT to drive Microsoft 365 adoption and efficiency in their organizations. End users are more tech-savvy than ever, and they love to feel empowered to do things on their own. So, explore ShareGate’s provisioning features and end-user app to enable end users to create and manage things on their own—always with maximum security. 

Now, before you go, explore our free Microsoft 365 maturity assessment tool. It’s a series of questions that help you figure out your maturity level when it comes to Microsoft 365 security, governance, adoption, shadow IT, and sprawl. When you finish it, you’ll have improvement tips based on your results to take your Microsoft 365 environment to the next level. Check it out!