Collaborating with Guests

You can collaborate with and create assignments for coworkers even if they don’t have a QorusDocs license.

When you do that, they are automatically added as ‘Guest’ users, allowing them limited access to QorusDocs, so that they can collaborate with you and action their assignment ‘To-do’ list.

Please note that Guests are restricted to a maximum of five concurrent assignments at a time, and they do not have access to any other QorusDocs functionality, like Search or Auto Answer.

In this article, we’ll cover: 

1. How to share a file with a Guest
2. How to create an Assignment for a Guest
3. The Guest user experience as they respond to your Assignments
4. The limitations around Guest user access in QorusDocs

1. How to share a file with a Guest

Before you can collaborate on a document, you’ll first need to make sure that the people you want to collaborate with can access it.

If the person you’re creating an assignment for doesn’t have access to it yet, then you’ll need to share it with them:    

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2. How to create an Assignment for a Guest

In a similar way to how you would create an Assignment for a licensed user, you can use the QorusDocs Add-in for Word, Excel, or PowerPoint to create assignments for coworkers who don’t have a license.

If you’re working on a Pursuit, the only difference really is that you’ll have to search for them in the ‘Assigned Users’ box, as they won’t be listed as part of the Pursuit Team Members when you create the assignment:

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3. The Guest user experience as they respond to your Assignments

It’s a good idea to let Guests know in advance to expect a few email notifications, especially if it’s the very first time you are collaborating with them using QorusDocs.

Here are the email notifications they are likely to receive:

• When you share a document with a coworker that they did not have access to previously, then they will receive an email notification letting them know you’ve shared a file with them, along with a link to access the file:

• If it’s the very first time your coworker is collaborating with you or anyone on your team using QorusDocs, we’ll send them a Welcome email, inviting them to get started by installing the QorusDocs Add-Ins for Microsoft Office. Guests, just like licensed users, only need to do this once and will not receive this email again.

• Then, finally, the Guest will be notified via email that an Assignment has been allocated to them. The email contains links to the document where the assignment is found, as well as to Hub Central. If the Guest clicks to visit the dashboard in Hub Central at the bottom of the email, they’ll be taken straight to Hub Central:

There, they can use the Search to search their OneDrive for Business content if they wish:

To access their Assignments, the Guest can click on ‘Assignments’ on the left nav, and then in their To-do list, they can click on the file icons on the right of their screen to open the files that contain assignments for them:

If they haven’t done so already, the Guest will need to install the QorusDocs Add-ins for Microsoft Office first, and then after they’ve logged in, they can click on ‘Assign’ in the top nav of the QorusDocs Add-In to see all their assignments in the 'To Do' tab.

Next, the Guest user can click on any one of their Assignments, and QorusDocs will automatically take them to the exact place in the file where the Assignment is found. They can then do one of two things:

• Start the assignment
• Reject the assignment

Start the assignment

When they are ready to begin, they can click on ‘Start’. This moves the Assignment from an ‘Assigned’ status to a ‘Started’ status, which is useful for all stakeholders who can more easily keep track of progress.

Then when their work is done, they can complete the Assignment by clicking on the ‘Done’ button:

This will notify you, or the person who created the Assignment, that it has been marked as ‘Done’ and is now ready for your review:

They could also view comments and/or leave a comment of their own by clicking on the ‘More Menu’ and then on the ‘Comment’ button:

Reject the assignment

Alternatively, if they are not the right person for the job, they can choose to reject the Assignment by clicking on the ‘Reject’ button:

The person who created the assignment will be notified and the Assignment will be hidden from view in the Guest user’s ‘To-do’ list.

Whenever a Guest, or any user for that matter, rejects an Assignment, they’ll be prompted to provide a reason why they chose to reject it:

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4. The limitations around Guest user access in QorusDocs

Guests are only allowed to have a maximum of five concurrent active assignments at a time.

By ‘active’ we mean that it is an assignment that has not yet been ‘closed’ by the person who created the assignment. An Assignment that has a status of ‘Assigned’, ‘Started’, ‘Done’, or ‘Rejected’, is considered to be an active Assignment.

If a Guest already has five active Assignments, then when you try to create a sixth Assignment, you’ll get the following error message:

There are two ways to fix this: you can either close one or more of the Guest’s active Assignments or upgrade to a paid user license.

• Changing the Assignment Status to ‘Closed’

In the QorusDocs Add-in, click on the name of the Assignment you’d like to close, then on ‘Status’, and then on ‘Closed’:

• Upgrade the Guest to a paid user license.

QorusDocs Admin users can manage user licenses in Hub Central, by going to Settings > User Management, and then by clicking on the cog or gear icon to the right of the user’s name:

You can learn more about managing users here.

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