Let me introduce you to the Access Request and Invitations feature that allows you to manage access requests to your sites in SharePoint 2013. All users without access to a particular site on SharePoint will be prompted with this message
"Sorry, this site hasn't been shared with you".
Now, how do you share the site then? Or how does a user request for access to the site?
By Enabling Access Requests!
Firstly, enable Access Requests, and to do that you need to enable Outgoing e-mail settings. Navigate to the Central Administration, under System Settings / Configure outgoing e-mail settings.
Once this is enabled your users will instead see something else instead of a "Sorry, ......" message, which is:
Let us know why you need access to this site
The user requesting access needs to provide a reason and click Send Request. The site admin will be notified via e-mail and the user's request is saved in the site.
To provide site Access
The site administrator can click on Site Settings (the cog wheel) / Shared With... to see the current Sharing status. If there are pending access requests, the admin will see a notification. You can click on View Requests.
The administrations will see all pending access requests in a list where they can see who wants access to which site and by clicking the ellipsis (the … ) they can see status of a specific request.
The admin can approve or decline the request or initiate a communication with the user requesting. If you type a message to the requester, it will show up in the same page which the user requested in the first place.
Site admins can also go to Site Settings / Access requests and invitations.
You can also access the Access Request hidden SharePoint List using the below URLs:
Guest user invitations - Access Requests/pendinginv.aspx
History - Access Requests/oldreq.aspx
Pending Requests - Access Requests/pendingreq.aspx
"Sorry, this site hasn't been shared with you".
Now, how do you share the site then? Or how does a user request for access to the site?
By Enabling Access Requests!
Firstly, enable Access Requests, and to do that you need to enable Outgoing e-mail settings. Navigate to the Central Administration, under System Settings / Configure outgoing e-mail settings.
Once this is enabled your users will instead see something else instead of a "Sorry, ......" message, which is:
Let us know why you need access to this site
The user requesting access needs to provide a reason and click Send Request. The site admin will be notified via e-mail and the user's request is saved in the site.
To provide site Access
The site administrator can click on Site Settings (the cog wheel) / Shared With... to see the current Sharing status. If there are pending access requests, the admin will see a notification. You can click on View Requests.
The administrations will see all pending access requests in a list where they can see who wants access to which site and by clicking the ellipsis (the … ) they can see status of a specific request.
The admin can approve or decline the request or initiate a communication with the user requesting. If you type a message to the requester, it will show up in the same page which the user requested in the first place.
Site admins can also go to Site Settings / Access requests and invitations.
You can also access the Access Request hidden SharePoint List using the below URLs:
Guest user invitations - Access Requests/pendinginv.aspx
History - Access Requests/oldreq.aspx
Pending Requests - Access Requests/pendingreq.aspx