How to accept family invite

joegohlke

We have a family plan and would like to invite new family members that do not have a 1Password account. The invite provides 3 of the 4 values needed, but not the Master Password. Creating a trial account gives the opportunity to create a Master Password, but it doesn't work on the family account. Any suggestions how to make this work?

Ben

Hi @joegohlke,

Thanks for taking the time to write in.

Within a 1Password Families membership each individual will receive their own account when you invite them. All of their sign-in details will be unique except for the sign-in address. What I mean by that is, for example, if your 1Password Families sign-in URL is smith.1password.com then all of your family members will use that address. Otherwise all of the details (email address, Secret Key, and Master Password) are unique to them. When you invite someone you specify the email address that they will use. When they complete the signup process the system will assign them a Secret Key and they will pick their Master Password.

Also as part of the signup process they should be prompted to print an Emergency Kit, which I would strongly encourage everyone to do. This kit will print with everything needed to sign in except the Master Password. There is a spot on the kit to fill in the Master Password once printed.

I hope that helps. Should you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to ask.

Ben

joegohlke

Ben,

Thanks for the quick response. The email invite does provide the link as you describe. The part that we can't figure out is the when you end up on the login screen, there are four fields required. 3 of them are filled in and the Master Password is blank. I'm pretty sure the system at this point expects you to already have one. No matter what we put in here, it fails.

My son is the account admin and when he invited me, it took me a while to figure this part out and I'm not exactly sure how I did it. I ended up creating a trial account, then adding my family account to the trial account and then abandoning my trial account. This left me with a family account.

We have been trying this for my wife, but haven't hit the right sequence. At this point, she has both of her email addresses tied to different trial accounts and no access to the family account.

We haven't stored any data in either of her accounts, so can easily start over.

Ben_Gohlke

An important point to add is that my mom is trying to sign up/in from the 1password iOS app. Is it important that she complete her sign up from the web first? If so, it would be useful to add some UI to the iOS app to instruct family account holders to go to the web before trying to sign into the app. The iOS app has only two basic workflows: sign up for a trial, or sign into your already existing account with a few different options. The part my dad is talking about is the option to sign into your 1password.com account, something my mom doesn't have yet because she has not successfully created her master password.

Ben

Ah, I see. Yes, she needs to accept the invitation to the family account that you've sent her to create an account that is part of the 1Password Families membership before she can sign in.

The email invite contains a link that is used to set up her account. I'd recommend doing this on a computer, as that will likely make it easier to print the Emergency Kit.

Thanks.

Ben

joegohlke

We got this working. The Family admin deleted her account and we started over. With her new invitation, she signed in on the web which prompts for a "new Master Password". Once she set up her account, she was able to download the apps and sign in on the iPhone and mac.

This process doesn't work if you attempt it in the mobile app only. It also doesn't report error conditions properly or provide useful guidance. It just reports the login attempt as "invalid".

Jacob

@joegohlke Thanks for the update! Glad to hear you got her invited. I'm sorry you had to go through that though — it should have been quite a bit simpler. I just tried inviting myself to one of my family accounts used for testing, then accepting the invite on my iPhone and it worked as I expected, so I want to clarify a few things.

Here's the page where I chose a Master Password:

Then here's where I confirmed it by typing it and signing in:

Is this what your wife did as well? Or did she perhaps create another account that wasn't part of the family? We do offer individual 1Password accounts, which you can create on this page. They are separate from family accounts. With a family, the person who sets up the account first invites the rest of the family and shares vaults with them. Individual accounts are just for one person.

The reason I ask is because it's not currently possible to accept invites to a family account inside the 1Password app. When you set up an account there, it's an individual one that isn't associated with a family. Let me know if this sounds familiar.

joegohlke

We did get wrapped around the axle trying to set her account up through the iOS app. As you have confirmed, it doesn't work. I pre-loaded the app on her phone and I think the email invite opened the app.

To help future customers avoid this confusion, it might be helpful to indicate very clearly in the iOS app that completing an invitation to a family account isn't possible in the app and that the user should use the link provided in the email to complete the signup on the web. Also, if it is true that the iOS app, if installed, responds to the link from the email and opens automatically, that should probably be disabled until the iOS app can support family account signup.

At this point, I'm converting my MSecure entries to both my private and our shared vault. It's slow and a bit painful, but fun to take advantage of the 1Password features. Another vote for Custom Templates from us! I see that you are evaluating them in the Dev baseline. We hope they make it to production.

Appreciate the help.

AGAlumB

Indeed, thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry for the trouble there. I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying 1Password otherwise, and I'm also hoping we'll be able to bring custom templates to more 1Password users in the future. :)

joegohlke

Just a quick post-mortem on this for future readers.

It was primarily user error on my part. I didn't follow the instructions.

The take-away is to follow the Family invite link to the web page. Setup your Family Account there. It's really the only place where you have the option of entering a "new" Master Password. Once you get this done, the rest of it is pretty straightforward.

Ben

Thanks for the feedback, @joegohlke. :)

Ben

Phandam

Just want to add that I had the exact same issue trying to accept a family invitation via the iOS app. When the app wouldn't accept the master password I thought I created, I ended up putting my master password, which the app accepted and my wife has access to ALL the vaults, which I assume is because I used my password and not hers. If I look at the vault permissions, she is not supposed to have access to my Private or other vaults but does.

I guess I will try to delete her account and send a new invite, and accept it via a laptop instead of the app.

AGAlumB

Just want to add that I had the exact same issue trying to accept a family invitation via the iOS app. When the app wouldn't accept the master password I thought I created, I ended up putting my master password, which the app accepted and my wife has access to ALL the vaults, which I assume is because I used my password and not hers. If I look at the vault permissions, she is not supposed to have access to my Private or other vaults but does.

@Phandam: It sounds like you have her logging in to your own 1Password.com account. Without your Master Password and Secret Key, it isn't possible to access your Personal/Private vault.

I guess I will try to delete her account and send a new invite, and accept it via a laptop instead of the app.

Definitely send her an invitation so she can setup her very own account as part of your 1Password Family. Then you'll be able to share vaults with her, but you'll also each have your own Private vault. Let me know how you get along!

Phandam

Thanks for the response, I deleted her account and sent another invite, followed the instructions carefully via the website this time and all worked perfectly.

I apparently did have her logging into my account, should that be possible considering the Secret Key is different? Or maybe that is by design....

AGAlumB

Excellent! Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear that she was able to setup her own account as a member of your 1Password Family. It sounds like you should be all set, but don't hesitate to reach out if we can be of further assistance. We're always here to help! :)