Understanding External Access Settings in Sintel Forms

Sintel Forms offers several external access features that allow people outside your organisation to interact with forms securely. These features let external users submit, edit, or receive shared forms without needing access to your Microsoft 365 / SharePoint environment.

You can enable one, multiple, or all of these settings depending on your requirements. Each feature is independent, meaning you can customise access based on how external users need to interact with your forms.

This guide provides a brief overview of each external access setting, with links to detailed articles explaining how they work.

1. External Submissions

🔹 Allows external users to submit forms without SharePoint access.
🔹 A public submission link is generated for external users to fill out forms.
🔹 Submitted data is saved in SharePoint, but external users cannot view or edit their submissions.

📖 Read more: External Submissions

2. External Collaboration

(Requires External Submissions to be enabled)

🔹 Extends External Submissions to allow external users to edit their own submitted forms.
🔹 Users receive a confirmation email with a link to access their submission.
🔹 Editing requires a temporary PIN, ensuring secure access.

📖 Read more: External Collaboration

3. External Sharing

🔹 Allows internal users to share a specific form with an external user.
🔹 External users can view and edit the form (if granted permission).
🔹 Shared forms require an invitation and PIN authentication for access.

📖 Read more: External Sharing

4. External Access Settings

🔹 Controls how external users interact with person-type fields in forms.
🔹 Person-type fields can be enabled, disabled, or hidden for external users.
🔹 Helps protect internal user details such as names and email addresses.

📖 Read more: External Access Settings

Choosing the Right External Access Feature

Feature	Submit Forms	Edit Own Submission	Edit Shared Forms	Requires SharePoint Access?
External Submissions	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
External Collaboration	✅ Yes	✅ Yes (via PIN)	❌ No	❌ No
External Sharing	❌ No	❌ No	✅ Yes (if shared by an internal user)	❌ No
External Access Settings	⚙ Controls visibility of person fields for external users.

Understanding these external access settings helps you control how external users interact with your forms while maintaining security and compliance. You have full flexibility to enable the features that best suit your organisation’s needs.

For more details, refer to the individual articles linked above. If you need further assistance, visit our Support Page.