In Zoho Directory and other Zoho apps that use an organisation model, an external user is someone who belongs to a different Zoho organisation but has been invited into yours to do a specific job. This article explains what that means, what external users can and can't do, and how an admin can convert them into full organisation users.

Who Are External Users?

Certain Zoho apps work on an organisation model, where each organisation has an owner or super admin and one or more apps under it. A person can be a regular user of only one organisation. Their account settings are managed by that organisation's admin, and they can only use that organisation's apps as a regular user.

When they need to work with another organisation, they can join it as an external user, with restricted access. Typical external users include consulting partners, customers, vendors, clients, accountants, project consultants, and student interns.

What External Users Can Do

What "limited access" means depends on the app and on what the administrator has set. Zoho gives these examples:

• Zoho Connect. They can see the network wall and forums and contact other members, but can't create a new group or a town hall. See Zoho Connect: External Network.
• Zoho Cliq. They can have one-to-one conversations but can't join the organisation's channels. See Zoho Cliq external users.
• Zoho WorkDrive. They can open existing team folders and files, but can't create team folders of their own or share them with others.

How Someone Becomes an External User

The organisation's admin invites them, and they become an external user when they accept. To check which organisation you belong to as a regular user, sign in at accounts.zoho.com, choose Settings, and scroll to the bottom of the page. The organisation name and your admin's contact email are shown there. If you aren't an organisation user, nothing is shown.

Becoming a Regular User of Another Organisation

A person can't be a regular user of two organisations, so they must first be disassociated from their current one. Their current organisation's admin does that. Once done, they can accept the invitation from the new organisation. If they are themselves an organisation's admin, they need to close that organisation first before accepting.

Converting External Users to Organisation Users (Admins)

In Zoho Directory, an Organisation Owner or Organisation Admin can convert external users into organisation users. Once converted, they receive the same full privileges as any other organisation user, so only convert people you genuinely want to have that access. To convert several at once:

1. Sign in to Zoho Directory and click Admin Panel in the left menu.
2. Go to User Management. The Users tab opens by default.
3. Click the three-dot menu in the top-right corner and choose Convert External Users.
4. Choose Convert All (you can exclude certain users) or Convert Specific Users, then click Next.
5. Resolve any conflicts (see below), click Confirm, and review the summary before clicking Done.

Conflicts You May Meet

• Domain conflict. The user's email domain hasn't been verified in your organisation. You can send them an invite regardless, in which case they join once they accept, or skip them and convert them later. You can apply one choice to everyone affected, or use Manage Individually to decide per user.
• Organisation conflict. The user already belongs to another Zoho organisation account. This cannot be resolved from the conversion screen. Contact us at zoho@1cloudconsultants.com and we can help you work out how to add them to yours.

Why Domain Verification Matters Here

The domain conflict above is one example of a wider rule. Zoho limits sensitive user management actions, such as resetting MFA, to users on domains verified in your organisation, and Reset MFA can't be performed for external users at all until they have been invited in properly. See how to add and verify a domain on Zoho Directory and disabling or resetting a user's two-factor authentication.