Get a Link and Office 365 Groups Files

The new Get-a-Link in Office 365 Groups Files will allow anyone in the organization / tenant who has the link to either view or edit a document, depending on the link you create. Much like the external guest link which gives anonymous access to external users. But this link is only available for anyone in your tenant. At this stage, we can’t share a document with an external guest from Groups Files.
Let’s just call this update “Internal Get-a-Link” to avoid confusion.

The details pane for a document also received an update. We can copy a direct link to the document. This used to be available on the fly-out of the ellipses menu.

I use this often when I want to send a link to a document in an email, rather than sending a less personal Office 365 generated email “Darrell has shared a document with you.” I know the recipient already has access to the document because they are a member of the Group, or have access to a folder I shared with them in OneDrive for Business. So I don’t need to change permissions or explicitly invite them to the share the document. I write my email or post my message and use the direct link to the document.

Two welcome updates to Groups Files though Internal Get-a-Link might cause some confusion. We can now share the document by:

• Downloading and attaching it to an email… but who is doing that now? Oh, you are? Then grow your confidence in using the next two methods,
• Using the Share button — setting permissions and either sending an invite to an email address, or not. (Internal email addresses only at this stage.)
• Add a member to the Group and share the direct link, found in the Details pane.

Internal Get-a-Link is for those who want to share the document from where it is authored, rather than moving it to a site that is accessible to anyone in your tenant. If you want more control of who has access, continue to use the appropriate team site / Group or share the document explicitly with the people you want to share with.