We recently looked at how to create a sharing link in Office 365 so you can share documents and files with others easily. But you may need to share with a higher level of security than that method provides, while still sharing with others outside your organization.

In the video above, you’ll see the method you can use to share individual documents and entire SharePoint sites with external users while requiring them to sign in using a personal or work Microsoft account.

There are a few important points to keep in mind when sharing with external users:

• Before you can share documents or sites, a global admin must have enabled this sharing method and set appropriate permissions for the tenant. The admin can refer to Manage external sharing for your SharePoint Online environment for more information.

• According to Microsoft, “Only one person may log in to access your site or document using an invitation you send. However, the person who gets your invitation may decide to not use it, and instead forward the invitation to someone else who can then log in using their Microsoft account* or work account to access the site or document.”

• The users who receive your sharing invitation must have a Microsoft account associated with that email address, and they must sign in before accessing the shared document or site. For example, if you shared a document to monitor@bettercloud.com, I would sign in to my work account to view the doc. If the user you want to share with does not have an Office 365 account, he or she can sign up for a free Microsoft account.