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Invitation problems

What to do when an invitation email never arrives, the link has expired or was used, a buyer cannot sign in, or the invited person lands in the wrong place.

Updated 29 Sep 20264 min read

Two kinds of invitation exist and they fail in different ways. A colleague is invited into your organisation: the invitation stays open for 14 days, and a new colleague signs in with a temporary password that stops working after 7 days. A buyer is invited into an external group and receives their email only once the data room is published and the group is active. Start by telling the two apart.

Before you start

  • Know which kind of invitation it is, and the exact email address that was invited. People often sign in with a different address from the one invited, which fails silently.

Steps

  1. Check the row. For a colleague, open Profile › Teams & People or the team's Members tab: the badge reads Invited, with Expires on hover, or Invitation has expired. For a buyer, open the group's Members tab: Queued for publish means no email has gone out yet; Invited means it has; Active means they have signed in.
    Only Invited rows have received an email.1.Members tab2.Account column
  2. If nothing was sent yet, look at why. A buyer stays queued while the data room is unpublished, while the group's External access is off, or while the portal is archived. Publish, activate the group, or republish; the queued people are emailed then.
When is a buyer's invitation email sent?A buyer is added to an external group. If the data room is not published, the person is queued and emailed when you publish. If it is published but the group's External access is off, the person is queued and emailed when you activate the group. If both are true, the email is sent immediately. While the portal is archived nothing is sent until it is republished.A buyer is addedto an external groupIs the data roompublished?yesnoIs the group'sExternal access on?yesnoEmail sent now“You're invited to …”Account column: InvitedQueued for publishNo email yet. Sent themoment you selectPublish and send invites.Queued for activationNo email yet. Sent whenyou switch Externalaccess on for the group.Archived portal: nothing is sent until you republish; queued people are emailed then.Resend invite works once published with External access on; the portal link stays the same.Existing account: a buyer who already uses another deal gets a link without a temporary password.
Read this as text

When is a buyer's invitation email sent? A buyer added to an external group is emailed only once two things are true: the data room is published and the group's External access toggle is on. If the data room is not published, the person is Queued for publish and emailed the moment you select Publish and send invites. If it is published but the group's External access is off, the person is queued and emailed when you switch the toggle on and confirm Activate access. When both are already true, the email goes out immediately and the Account column reads Invited. While the portal is archived nothing is sent until it is republished. A buyer who already has an account from another deal receives a link without a temporary password. Resend invite on a member's row works once the room is published and the group's External access is on. The portal link stays the same; a buyer who has not signed in yet gets a new temporary password and the old one stops working, and a buyer with an account gets a reminder. ::

  1. If the email was sent but not received, ask them to search for the subject and to check spam and quarantine. A new buyer receives You're invited to followed by the deal name, a buyer with an account You now have access to followed by the deal name, a new colleague You're invited!, and a colleague with an account You've been invited to followed by your organisation's name; the sender is the app, not a colleague's address. Then resend: ⋮ › Resend invite on a buyer's row, or Resend invitation on a colleague's. Resending restarts the invitation for a colleague and issues a fresh temporary password to anyone who has not signed in yet.
    Resend as often as needed.
  2. If the link says We couldn't accept this invitation, it has expired or was already used. Resend it. If it says Invalid invitation link, the link was cut when copied; ask them to open it from the email again.
  3. If a colleague accepted but sees an empty organisation or Workspace setup is taking longer than expected, the workspace is still being prepared. Try again on that page finishes the step; the project links work once they are in the right organisation, which they can switch to with Switch Organization in the account menu.

Check the result

The colleague's badge disappears and they appear as a member; the buyer's Account column reads Active. If a role or team was chosen at invite time, it is applied on acceptance and shows in People with access.

If something goes wrong

The buyer already has an account from another deal

Their email contains no temporary password, only the link. They sign in with their existing password, and Forgot password? on the portal sign-in page resets it if needed.

The colleague signed in but sees a different organisation

Their account belongs to several organisations. They select Switch Organization in the account menu, which lists their Organizations; the pending invitation is also listed there and can be accepted from the app.

The temporary password no longer works

A new colleague or buyer has 7 days to sign in with the temporary password from their invitation email. After that it stops working, even though a colleague's invitation still shows as open. Resend the invitation; the new email carries a fresh temporary password.

The invitation is refused

An address that already belongs to a member of the organisation, or that already has a pending invitation, is refused with a message saying so; add an existing member to the team directly instead of inviting. The two kinds of account do not mix: a buyer must be removed from the buyer group before being invited as a colleague, and a colleague cannot be added as a buyer.

You cannot invite anyone

Only organisation admins invite colleagues, and buyers can only be added once the project has a Deal Portal and an external group. Your organisation may also have used all its seats; an admin sees this as a failed invitation and can free a seat by removing an inactive user.