External collaborators

Invite contractors and clients into one workspace as Guests, and understand the limit that keeps them out of administration.

An external collaborator is a contractor, client or partner who needs to work with you without becoming a full member. They join your organization scoped to one workspace, start as a Guest, and sit under a fixed limit on what they can ever reach — whatever role someone later gives them.

How an external collaborator differs from a member#

	Member	External collaborator
Reach	The whole organization, as their role allows	The one workspace named when they were invited
Starting role	Whatever you choose	Guest
Can ever manage members, invitations, roles, billing or organization settings	If their role allows it	Never

Who can invite them#

Permissions

invitation.createmember.remove

Anyone who can invite members can invite an external collaborator. Removing one needs member.remove, as for any member.

Invite an external collaborator#

Open the invite dialog
Go to SettingsMembers and choose Invite member.
Enter their email
Use the address they will sign in with.
Switch on Outside your organization
The Role picker is replaced by Workspace they may see.
Choose the workspace
This is required — an external collaborator is always scoped to something, never to the organization at large. Send invitation stays disabled until you pick one.
Choose Send invitation
The invitation appears under Pending invitations with the Guest role.

What Guest means#

Guest is deliberately minimal. On its own it lets someone see that the organization exists and manage their own notifications, so they can still be mentioned or assigned. Everything else they reach is what has been explicitly shared with them. See the system roles.

The permanent limit#

If an external collaborator needs more, you can change their role in the Role column of the Members list like anyone else’s. Their new role’s ordinary permissions then apply — except these, which an external collaborator is refused whatever role they hold:

inviting people, and creating or revoking invitations;
changing anyone’s role, or removing members;
creating, editing or deleting roles;
managing or deleting the organization;
anything to do with billing.

Important

The limit is checked on every request and does not depend on roles being set up correctly. Even if someone gives an external collaborator the Organization Admin role by mistake, they still cannot reach members, roles, billing or organization settings — and the refusal says why.

Ending their access#

External collaborators are managed on the Members tab like anyone else. Use Suspend to pause their access between engagements and Reactivate when they return, or Remove when the work is over. See Suspending and removing members.

Limitations#

An existing member cannot be turned into an external collaborator. Remove them and invite them again with Outside your organization switched on, so the scoping is set when the membership is created.
The invite dialog scopes a collaborator to a workspace. Scoping one to a single project instead is possible through the UnitX API.

What happens if I give an external collaborator the Organization Admin role?

They get that role’s ordinary permissions, and are still refused members, roles, invitations, billing and organization settings.

Do external collaborators use a seat?

They are members of your organization once they accept, so they count like any other member. See Billing and plans.

Should I use a service account for a client’s system instead?

Yes, if it is software rather than a person. See Service accounts and API keys.

Still stuck? Search the docs with ⌘K, open Help inside UnitX, or contact support.