A customer who has to hand in their identity card, an assessor who needs to see the photographs of a claim, a lawyer who wants the file to read. None of them has, or should have, an account in your organisation. For them there is the invitation: a link sent by email to one Dossier, and to nothing else.
An invitation is not a user. Whoever receives it has no profile, no role and no name in the system — only an email address. That is why the rules of this chapter are tighter than the ones inside.
Where it is
On the Forms step of a saved Dossier, beside the Dossier Team, the Shares section lists the people outside the company who were invited to this dossier, and what they have done with the invitation.
The section only appears to whoever holds the permission Share a dossier outside the tenant, which the Case Worker and Case Manager templates carry. For anybody else nothing appears — not even an empty list.
Only a Public Dossier leaves the company
A Dossier can only be shared if it is classified as Public. On a Dossier at any other level, the section explains the rule before anybody types an address — Only a Public dossier can be shared outside the company — and says what the current level is. The classification is changed on the same step, in Confidentiality, by somebody who knows what the Dossier holds. Sharing is not a quieter second way of changing it.
And the rule keeps holding after the invitation: if the Dossier stops being Public, its invitations are withdrawn on their own, with the note Withdrawn on its own when this dossier stopped being Public.
Inviting
Invite someone outside asks for:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| Recipient email | One address only. One invitation, one person, so that "who opened this?" keeps an answer |
| What they may do | View only, or View and fill in |
| Language of the invitation | The language of the email and of the pages the recipient sees |
| Expires after (days) | Between 1 and 365 days. The link stops working on its own when the time is up |
| Verification | By default, a code emailed to the recipient: they need the link and the code |
Send invitation sends the email at once. The link is never shown on screen and there is nothing to copy or forward: it only reaches the invited address, by email.
Without a code, and why it is rare
On a View only invitation you can turn on Send a link that opens without a code. The screen states the price before you accept it: anybody who receives or forwards the link can open the Dossier, and the record can no longer say who opened it — only that somebody holding the link did.
A View and fill in invitation always carries a code: whoever uploads files and submits has to prove they hold the invited mailbox.
What the person outside sees
The email carries the link. With a code, the page first asks for the 6 digits sent to the invited address, and shows nothing of the Dossier before that. The number of attempts is limited: too many wrong codes block the invitation, which becomes Blocked on its own after too many wrong verification codes.
Then the page — with your organisation's logo — says who shared it with them, what the link allows, whether their identity was confirmed with the code, and that the session closes after a while without activity. The person can Close this session whenever they like.
What is there is only part of the Dossier:
- The Documents whose level is Public as well, with their files. A Document more restricted than the Dossier does not appear, not even by name.
- The fields of the Dossier and of the visible Documents. A sensitive field appears as Filled in — kept confidential: the person knows it is filled in, but does not read the value.
- Nothing else: not the comments, not the approval chain, not the history, not the Genius.
View only
You can read and save everything here. Nothing on this page can be changed. Each file has Open and Save.
View and fill in
The page is called Documents requested from you. For each Document it says what is missing, how many files it takes and of which types, and has Add file; the fields the person may fill in have Save answers. Everything they save is kept, so they can close the page and come back later through the same link.
Once everything required is there, Finish and send shows Send everything; while something is missing, it lists what. Sending moves the Dossier on as if it had been submitted inside, with the same checks and the same routing. From then on the invitation is Submitted and read-only: the person can still look at what they handed in, but can no longer change it.
Filling in only works while the Dossier is being prepared or has something outstanding. If the organisation has already moved it on, the page says so and accepts nothing more.
Following up and withdrawing
Each invitation on the list shows its state — Active, Submitted, Expired or Withdrawn — its mode, its verification, when it expires, and what happened: Last opened…, or Sent… — not opened since. Whoever sent the invitation is told when it is opened and when it is submitted.
- Send again emails a new link; the old one stops working immediately, and the expiry restarts that day.
- Withdraw cuts access the moment you confirm — any page the person has open stops working on their next click. It cannot be undone: letting them back in is a new invitation.
A withdrawn, expired or blocked invitation stays on the list, with its reason. It is the record of who had access, and it is not deleted.
What you should have now
- A Public Dossier with a View only invitation, opened with the code, and its line on the list saying when it was opened.
- A View and fill in invitation used up to Send everything, and the Dossier moving on by itself.
- One withdrawn invitation, so you have seen the link die on the next click.
- A clear answer, for one shared Dossier, to the question: which Documents does the person outside see, and why those?