Sharing folders and files, inside and outside your company

Who can share: the four roles

Everyone who can open a folder or a file holds one of four roles on it.

• Viewer reads it.
• Suggester reads it and can offer changes.
• Editor changes it directly, and can move, archive and delete it.
• Admin does everything an Editor does, and also decides who else gets in.

Your company's admins count as Admins of every folder the company can open. A private folder is the exception: there, only the people named on the folder are its Admins.

If you know Google Drive, the difference is that an Editor here cannot share, and that cannot be switched on. Changing what something says and deciding who sees it are different jobs.

Why can't I share this?

Because you are not an Admin of it. You can still open its Share dialog and see everything: who has access, what the whole company can do, and the share folders it is shared through. Nothing in it can be changed, and one line tells you who can:

You can see who has access. Only admins can share this: Priya Shah, and your company's admins.

Ask one of those people. An Admin can share it in one step. There is no request button for sharing with someone else, on purpose: a hidden second way to share is not how people expect a Share dialog to behave.

If the Share dialog does let you share but sharing outside is refused or held, your company's outside-sharing setting is the reason. See your company's outside-sharing setting.

Sharing a folder or file with someone outside your company

Open the folder or file in the Hub and choose Share. In the box where you add people, type one of three things:

• An email address. HexaHQ emails them a link. If they have no HexaHQ account they make one on the way in, in their own organization. They never join yours.
• Another company on HexaHQ, by its short name. It appears for everyone at that company.
• Anyone with the link. HexaHQ makes a link, and whoever opens it and signs in can read.

Press Share and the dialog tells you what happened, for example: "Shared with Bob through a new share folder, Remodel. Anything added to this folder later is shared too."

People outside your company can only read. They cannot change the content or share it on, and they never see who else it was shared with.

Or ask your AI. "Share the Remodel folder with bob@example.com" does exactly what the Share dialog does, under the same rules. Anything you can do in the Hub, your AI can do too.

What a share folder is, and why it holds the originals

A share folder gathers folders and files from anywhere in your company into one place you can share. It behaves like any folder you are an Admin of, with one difference: it holds the originals, not copies. Each file stays where it lives, with one history, and the share folder points at it. A file can be in several share folders at once.

When you share a folder or file outside from its own Share dialog, HexaHQ makes the share folder for you:

• It is named after what you shared, holds just that one thing, and makes you its Admin.
• Sharing the same folder outside again reuses it, so all the outside people for one folder are in one place.
• A share folder that points at a folder includes everything filed there later.

Two rules follow from holding the originals.

• Putting something into a share folder takes Admin on it. Adding a file or folder is the moment its Admin hands it over, so being able to read it is not enough.
• An Admin of a share folder does what an Admin of any folder does. They give anyone any role on it, share it outside, and take things out of it. Someone made an Editor through a share folder changes the real file, and the change shows up on that file's own page under its folder's review setting.

Seeing where sharing comes from

A folder's Share dialog lists every share folder that reaches it: ones that point at the folder, and ones that point at a folder above it. For each, it shows the name, where the sharing comes from, and who it reaches, inside and outside your company. A single file's Share dialog does the same for that file.

If you are an Admin of a share folder, you can turn off any outside person, company or link it reaches right there, with Turn it off.

Giving different people different things

By default everyone outside who gets one folder shares one share folder. That exposes nobody, since outside people never see each other. Keep them apart when they should get different things, for example when one partner should also get the pricing sheet.

Use your AI, this is much easier. Tell it what you want, such as "give Acme their own share folder with the pricing sheet in it", and it does every step.

In the Hub it takes a few steps, all from the folder's Share dialog. Make a New share folder holding this folder (the name defaults to the folder's, and you can change it). Add the partner to it. Then use Turn it off for them on the old one. No two share folders have the same name: a second "Remodel" becomes "Remodel_2".

The partner gets an invitation to the new share folder, and the old one stops opening for them once they are turned off on it. You need to be an Admin of each share folder involved, and an Admin of the folder or file to make a new share folder for it.

Your company's outside-sharing setting

On top of the Admin rule, a company admin chooses who may share outside, in the Hub's organization settings under Sharing outside the organization. It covers all three kinds of outside audience.

• Anyone in the organization (the default). Any Admin of the folder or share folder can share outside, and it goes out at once.
• Members can ask, an admin approves. An outside share waits until a company admin approves it, and nothing is sent until then. A company admin's own share goes out at once.
• Only admins. Only company admins can share outside. Anyone else is refused.

Here "admin" means an admin of the company, not of a folder. Being Admin of a folder is what lets you share it at all; this setting decides whether that is enough to share it outside.

Asking for access to something you cannot open

Asking for access for yourself is different from asking someone to share with another person. For a connector you cannot use, open it in the Hub and ask its admins; they grant or decline. For a folder or file, ask one of its Admins or the person who sent it to you.