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Collaboration & approvals

Share a document with external parties

Invite the other party by email, send them a personal link, or create a view-only public link, and control how long access lasts.

Written By Sebastian

Last updated About 2 hours ago

Share a document with people outside your company so they can read it, comment, propose changes or fill in their details before signing. They don't need a fynk account.

Available on all plans · Negotiation with comments and proposals: Essential, Business and Pro

Before you share

  • Fill in the dynamic fields and the parties, so the other side sees a complete document.

  • Mark fields the other party should fill in themselves as Internal and external. See Dynamic fields: types, visibility, mandatory fields.

  • You don't have to share a document with signatories who only need to sign. They get their invitation automatically when signing starts.

  • Save your changes and leave edit mode before you share.

Three ways to share

Click Invite in the document header and choose:

Option

What the person can do

How long it's valid

Invite by email

Comment, propose changes and fill in fields, depending on their role

3 months

Personal link (Create link next to a person)

The same as an email invitation, but you send the link yourself, for example via a messenger

3 months

Public link

View the document only. Anyone with the link can open it.

You choose: 7 days, 30 days, 3 months (default), a custom date, or never expires

When you share a document for the first time, it moves to the Review stage. See Document stages explained.

Share a document using a link.

Share a document using a link.

Roles for external people

For each invited person, choose what they may do:

  • Collaborator: comment, propose changes and fill in fields marked for external parties

  • Viewer: read the document and comments shared externally; cannot add comments or see internal comments

You can change a person's role later in the Invite dialog.

Manage access to a document.

Manage access to a document.

Revoke access

Open Invite, find the person or the public link, and click Revoke access. The link stops working immediately.

Good to know

  • Signing invitations are separate: they're always valid for 48 hours, and the signatory can request a new link with one click. See My link expired or my code doesn't arrive.

  • External people only see comments marked as visible to everyone, never internal comments.

  • External people can't see the internal file storage, linked documents, metadata or the internal activity log.

  • Each party needs its own email address. If one person represents two parties, use plus addressing. Add +text before the @, for example name+company@example.com instead of name@example.com. Messages reach the original inbox if the email provider supports plus addressing and it is enabled. Check delivery with your IT team before using a plus address.

  • Add CC recipients when you start signing to give them an email notification and read-only access to the document. They are not asked to sign and also receive the final signed PDF when signing is complete.

  • Adding someone as an external party doesn't give them access to the document. Access comes from their role, for example collaborator, signatory or public-link viewer.

  • You can also invite people who aren't a party, for example an internal compliance team without fynk accounts, so they can give feedback.

  • The document's language setting decides the language of the emails and the interface that external people see.

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