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Licensing query - shared link or paid licence?

  • May 22, 2025
  • 1 reply
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I have a question regarding licensing requirements.

I understood that for our corporate Box instance, anyone within the organisation (i.e. a member of staff) who was given access (whether editor, viewer, uploader etc) would require a paid licence.  In this instance, I have staff members that have created free accounts in order to do this; I have explained that as far as I am aware, staff from within the organisation are not eligible for a free account to access company data.

Therefore I am asking them to either purchase a license or remove their access. 

I read a response to a recent similar post, that seemed to say that the use of shared links would be ok in this instance. I would like confirmation that by using a shared link, these members of staff would NOT require a paid licence, if they are accessing via use of a shared link.

Plus can you clarify the use of free accounts to access corporate data.

Kind regards

 

T

    1 reply

    C
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    Hi Toosh, 

    Welcome to the Box Community!

    To answer your question on using Shared links which will not require others to create a Box account (free or paid) to access a content, yes this is completely true as long as you set the proper Shared link access. Check out this article to more about creating shared links and setting proper link access: https://support.box.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043697094-Creating-Shared-Links 

    Shared link access

    When you create a shared link, you have these access permissions from which to choose:

    • People with the link:  "Anyone with the link can access the item and no Box account is required". For extra security, you can also set a password or expiration for the link, as well as restrict download and/or preview access for link viewers.
      • Password-protected shared links are available to all paid Box User accounts.
    • People in your company:  Only people who: (1) are managed on a Box account (Starter and above); (2) have an email address that matches a domain registered with Box for the account that created the link, can access the link. For example, if acme.com is a registered domain on your account, all managed account members with an email address ending in acme.com can access this type of link. People who do not match a domain listed on your account cannot access the link, even if they are managed members on your account.
      • When accessing the link, collaborators must log in to Box to verify their identities. People in your company is disabled if you do not have a valid business domain registered with Box.
      • Collaborators in the folder can also access content if People in your company is selected.
    • Invited people only: Only people invited to the folder or file can access the content. Collaborators already have access to their content, but can easily direct one another to a specific file or folder using the shared link.

    Regarding your question on those free accounts that are accessing your corporate data, these users would fall under the "External users" category. And yes, external users may be able to access your contents if you invite them to "Collaborate" and if is not restricted in your organization's settings.

    To learn more about the difference between external users and managed users, i recommend checking out at these KB articles:

    Hope that help!

    Thanks for your participation and time in the community!

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