Sharing w/a Guest who already has 1Password Families

MrC
MrC
Volunteer Moderator
edited January 2020 in Families

I have a contractor that I encouraged to use 1Password Families (on Windows).

I need to share some items with him as a guest to my family account. When he gets the invite, he's prompted to create an all new account, and has no means to use his own families account (as he does on a daily basis) and have my vault for him available.

Is this not possible? If it is, how is it done? The instructions are not clear on this.


1Password 7
Version 7.4.2.BETA-3 (70402003)
1Password Beta


1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

Comments

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @MrC!

    You can only share items with someone that is a member or a guest of your Families account. You cannot share a vault with an external Families account. This is why he is being prompted to create a guest account from your invitation.

  • MrC
    MrC
    Volunteer Moderator

    The word "guest" in the context of the document I linked above, and in your reply, is discordant with the word's meaning.

    I did indeed invite an external person as a "guest", but 1Password is limiting how the person can accept / use the invitation. Is this a technical limitation, or a business decision? Clearly it's penalizing a current 1Password Families user, and makes the "guest" invitation less than ideal or useful.

    I'd like to request there to be better integration of a "guest" vault into other 1Password.com accounts. This seems like a big oversight.

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    @MrC:

    I did indeed invite an external person as a "guest", but 1Password is limiting how the person can accept / use the invitation.

    Can you please clarify how 1Password is limiting the invitation for this guest?

  • MrC
    MrC
    Volunteer Moderator
    edited February 2020

    A "guest", as per dictionary definition, is anyone I invite. So let's use an analogy as an example.

    I invite a person to my dinner party. I send out the invitation, with the party's function, suggested formal clothing attire, and let them know transportation will be provided. The guest(s) dress for the occasion, get ready to leave, walk out to the curb, and find a motorcycle waiting to pick them up at the curb. Of course, nobody would expect to be driven to a formal event as a passenger on the back of a motorcycle. So you either hop on the back and mess up your fancy attire, or decline.

    1Password families has given me the opportunity to send out a guest invitation to share in a vault, and yet with the invitee goes to use that very invitation, finds he/she was inadvertently forced into using some different account then what they are already using. It's an entirely new account. You have the choice to hop on board (and mess up your daily 1Password Family usage), or decline.

    It's not at all obvious, nor ideal, that the invitee now has to sign-up for a new 1Password.com account, go into Preferences > Accounts, enter this new account (likely with the same email), this new Secret Key, and some new/same Master Password (which 1Password's Watchtower will complain about later if they are the same and Login items for these accounts are stored).

    I get that there may be technical limitations as to what can be done; but the current documentation and touting of this "guest" capability entirely ignores the real user/UI complexity and is a gross overstatement. The invitee who already has a 1Password.com account has no idea what they should do. So they decline, and the person who invited the guest has no idea why there's a no-show.

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    @MrC:

    Thank you for the clarification!

    A "guest", as per dictionary definition, is anyone I invite.

    Indeed, and at the moment you are required to invite a guest to your 1Password account too, so from that point of view we do exactly that. Once the guest receives the invite, they can accept it, ignore it, or even interrupt the process halfway before creating a new account: how they handle the invitation is certainly their prerogative, including how they communicate their decision back to you (if they decide to do that, of course).

    I can see how the process could be confusing though, when it comes to having to create a new account. I don't know if there is a technical way to share data securely without joining an account first, but I will be happy to pass your feedback along :)

  • PTWithy
    PTWithy
    Community Member

    I think what is missed in this conversation is that yes, when you invite someone as a guest to your account, and they already have their own 1PW Family account, they will indeed create a second account if they accept your invitation (because you did not invite their whole family, just them), but the 1PW App allows you to have multiple accounts, so they can just add that account to their app and then they will see the shared vault.

  • ag_ana
    ag_ana
    1Password Alumni

    @PTWithy:

    but the 1PW App allows you to have multiple accounts, so they can just add that account to their app and then they will see the shared vault.

    That's correct :) Thank you for mentioning this :+1:

This discussion has been closed.