Collaborate with external users through external channels
External channels enable seamless communication and collaboration with users from other organizations, even if they aren't in your data center. They provide a centralized platform to connect with clients, vendors, and customers.
Note: Collaboration with external users from different data centers is only possible through external channels. User from another data center cannot be added as an external contact for direct messages.
This feature is available for the following data centers: US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, and SA.
This feature is available for the following data centers: US, EU, IN, AU, JP, CA, and SA.
External channel creation by plan
- Free plan: External channels cannot be created.
- Standard plan: Only organization admins can create external channels.
- Professional and Enterprise plans: Any user can create external channels, but only if permitted by the admin.
Each user license allows the creation of up to five external channels. The total external channel limit is five times the number of paid user licenses. For example, if there are five paid users, you can create up to 25 external channels.
Enabling policies for external channels
As an admin, you must grant access to allow your organization’s users to collaborate with external users. Follow these steps:
- Navigate to the Admin Panel, click Permissions, and select Policies.
- Toggle on External collaboration policy to allow external users to view files that your organization members have shared.
- Toggle on Channel and Direct messages collaboration to allow external users to communicate with you—either through external channels or direct messages. Once enabled, you can further customize permissions by selecting the appropriate checkboxes under each section.
Finding and managing external channels
External channels do not appear in global search. This means that users can only join through an invitation from an authorized member or admin.
To view external channels:
- Click Channels in the left sidebar of the Cliq dashboard.
- View external channels under the External section.
If you are an admin, you decide who can send messages, edit information, add or remove participants, and so on within the external channel. You can assign these roles to admins, moderators, or members.
To assign these roles:
- Click the channel's profile icon.
- Select the Permissions tab.
- Choose your desired settings under the Configuration and Permissions sections. The changes will be reflected immediately.
Add multi-data center users to external channels
- The external users can be added either from the Add Participant section or the Invite section in the channel preview window.
- To invite, click on the participants
icon in the external channel, located next to the channel name.
- Select the Add participants button.
- Type the email address of the multi-data center user and click on the Add button.
- You can also navigate to the channel info, type the users you want to invite, and click the Invite button.
- An invitation will be sent to the user via email and Taz.
- The multi-data center user will be displayed as "invited" until they join the external channel.
Join external channels
Case 1: When the invitee's organization has enabled the Universal Collaboration policy
If the invited user's organization has enabled the Universal Collaboration policy, they will receive a message via Taz and a notification via email.
Select the channel name in Taz or click the View Invite button in the email. You'll be directed to the channel preview page.
Select the Join button in the channel preview page to join the external channel.
Case 2: When the invitees' organization has not enabled the Universal Collaboration policy
The user will receive an invite via email. Upon clicking View Invite, they will see a screen stating that their organization has not enabled the required policy. They will only be able to join the channel after the organization admin enables the policy. Note that if the admin is the invitee, they can enable the policy directly and join.
Case 3: When a non-Zoho account is invited as an external user to the channel
The user will receive an invite via email. They'll have to sign up for Cliq and create an organization to join the channel.
Case 4: When a Zoho user is invited to join an external channel but does not have a Cliq account
The user will receive an invite via email.
Upon clicking View Invite, a Cliq organization will be created for them, and they will be able to join the channel by enabling the external collaboration policy.
Disabling policies and deleting external channel data
When the organization that owns the external channel disables the universal or regional policies, users in the channel will no longer be able to collaborate.
An external channel and its data will only be removed if:
- The organization that owns the channel is deleted.
- The owner deletes the channel.
- The channel admin manually clears the data.
How to host and join external channel meetings
To host a meeting:
- Click the Quick Action
icon next to the search bar in the Cliq dashboard.
- Navigate to the Meet Now option and select Audio Meeting or Video Meeting.
- Toggle on Allow external users to join using the link.
- After starting the meeting, copy the guest link and share it in the relevant external channel.
- Users who belong to the same data center as the host will join as normal users, while those from other data centers will join as guests.
- Upon clicking the guest link, they will be directed to the host data center's domain in a new tab. Their voice data, along with other details like their name and email address, will be transferred directly to the host data center for processing.
- As guests, they will not have access to the meeting history or recordings, nor will they be able to view the meeting from within the Zoho Cliq mobile app.
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