Shared Drive access for external non-google accounts

[phyxiis]

Is/was there a change that recently happened where non-Google accounts have to now link those accounts to a Google account in order to access/update/modify a Team/Shared Drive folder?

Was on the phone with Google support for 2+ hours, along with some testing with a personal @live.com account, and it seems in order to allow an external person (our case, an implementation vendor) to be able to be "Content Manager", it requires them to link their account (MS365, or Live.com, etc.) to Google. After that they were able to be given "Content Manager" permissions. 

Before they linked the accounts, they only were able to be "Viewer" or "Contributor", with the caveat of "Contributor" not having permission to Add/Edit files in the given folder.

Someone had mentioned "Visitor Sharing" but that is turned on.

https://support.google.com/a/answer/9230591?product_name=UnuFlow&visit_id=637989494714169431-1550609...

"When sharing a folder in a shared drive with a visitor account, the highest permission the visitor can be given is contributor access. They can’t access the root folder of a shared drive."

Visitor (vendor) had Contributor access, but was still unable to add/edit files in the given folder. Users (from the vendor) that were already listed, have Content Manager role, and to my knowledge never linked their company accounts to Google (there's no warning, or banner, or message stating such for a visitor to gain access)

[anel]

Hi,

I am not sure that has changed. That was always the case as much as I remember. They may have linked or created accounts unknowingly ages ago and have access. I find lots of users do have the account linked, but have no clue when they did that.

If this is a partner you work with for a while I would use Cloud Identity Free and provide them with accounts. This way you get more control over the account and data at no cost. Just a suggestion. https://www.goldyarora.com/google-cloud-identity-setup/