SharePoint 2013 introduces many cool improvements in terms of user experience when working standard sites. For instance, users can easily request access to a specific site by using the new site access request and invitation mechanism. At the same time, a site administrator can easily do a follow up of all the access requests to a specific site. In this article, I am going to show you how to configure the site access request mechanism in a SharePoint 2013 site.
Let’s begin!
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Open your favorite web browser and navigate to a one of the SharePoint 2013 sites you have created in your CloudShare environment.
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Once you are in your site, go to Settings -> Site Settings. Under “Users and permissions” section, click the “Site permissions link”.
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Next click the “Access Request Settings” option available in the ribbon so a dialog window is opened to configure site access request.
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In the “Access request” settings dialog, click the “Allow access request” option and fill the e-mail address box with the e-mail account of the user who will receive any site access request (usually a site administrator or a site collection administrator). Once you’ve done, click the “OK” button.
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Open other web browser session and try to access this site with a user who has not been invited to it yet. Note that the browser will automatically redirect you to a URL like the following one:
/_layouts/15/AccessDenied.aspx?Source=http%3A%2F%2Fc4968397007%2Fsites%2FCloudshare”> http://<YourSite>/_layouts/15/AccessDenied.aspx?Source=http%3A%2F%2Fc4968397007%2Fsites%2FCloudshare
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This is where the new access request system starts to work. You will see an access request dialog where you can input why you need access to the site and send your request. Complete the dialog box, and click the “Send request” button.
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Once the request has been sent, the access request page shows an “Awaiting approval” message to the user.
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As a site administrator, and in a different web browser session, navigate back to the “Site settings” page and note there is a new option called “Access requests and invitations”. This option is available to site administrators as soon as a new user requests access to the site.
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Click the “Access requests and invitations” link so you can access the “Access requests” list where you, as a site administrator, can see any site access request. Note that there is one user request with status “Pending”.
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By opening the individual access request menu, you can decide whether to approve or decline user access to the site. You can also configure the SharePoint permission applicable to the user.
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Decline the access request, so that if the user tries again to the site, he will see an information message declining the access.
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At the same time, the “Access request” list is emptied and a site administrator can check all access requests made by clicking the “Show history” button.
And that’s all you need to know about how to use and configure site access requests in SharePoint 2013.
Happy CloudSharing!