Invite workspace members

Invite members when someone should belong to the workspace

Use a workspace invite when a person should become part of the team, appear in People, be available in member search, join teams, and work across more than one item in the workspace. This is the right path for employees, long-term teammates, instructors, students who belong to a class workspace, or recurring collaborators who need workspace context.

Do not use a workspace invite for everyone who needs a link.

This keeps the workspace directory clean, limits access, and avoids confusion about seats and admin rights. For the difference, read Members, guests, and external collaborators.

Availability and permissions

Where to find member invites

Workspace member invitations usually start from the workspace’s member management area.

1. Confirm you are in the correct workspace with Switch workspaces.
2. Open Home → People or Workspace settings → Members, depending on where your workspace exposes member management.
3. Choose Invite member or the equivalent invite action.
4. Enter the person’s email address.
5. Choose the role or permission level available in your workspace.
6. Send the invite.

If the invite action is missing, check your workspace role first. Member-invite controls are usually hidden from people who cannot invite members. If you are an admin and the action is still missing, check seat limits or plan restrictions. See Manage workspace members and Seat limits.

Edu and Edu Pro workspaces can hide member-management and member-invite controls because they are one-person workspace plans in current product logic. If you expected a classroom or team roster to live in one shared workspace, review the plan before troubleshooting the invite button as a bug.

Before you send the invite

Choose a role

Most teams should invite people as regular workspace members unless they truly need admin responsibility. A workspace admin can usually manage member lists, roles, billing-sensitive settings, and other workspace-level actions. That access is broader than edit access on a canvas.

If someone needs to edit one canvas, do not make them a workspace admin. Share the canvas with edit permission. If someone needs to approve billing, manage seats, or maintain the workspace member list, an admin role may be appropriate. See Change a member role before increasing access.

What happens after the invite is sent

The recipient receives an invitation and must sign in with the invited account. After acceptance, they become a workspace member. They can appear in People, member search, team assignment, mention pickers, and member management surfaces.

Becoming a workspace member does not automatically grant edit access to every project or canvas. Private or restricted work may still require item-level sharing. If the new member can enter the workspace but cannot open a specific canvas, open the canvas Share dialog and update that item’s permission.

Invite examples

If you are onboarding a new employee, invite them to the workspace as a member, add them to the right team, then share the specific projects or canvases they need for their first week.

If a contractor needs to edit one launch canvas for two days, share that canvas with edit access instead of adding them as a workspace member. When the work ends, remove their canvas access.

If a teacher wants every student to appear in the class workspace directory, workspace invites may be appropriate. If students only need one activity canvas, guest or external collaborator access may be cleaner.

If a client says they cannot open the link, check whether you meant to invite them as a workspace member or share one item. Sending a workspace invite when the canvas itself is still private may not fix the canvas access.

Resend, cancel, or correct an invite

If an invite was sent to the wrong email, do not ask the recipient to accept it from another account. Cancel or ignore the incorrect invite where your workspace allows it, then send a new invite to the correct email.

If the recipient says they never received the email:

1. Verify the address before resending.
2. Ask them to check spam, company quarantine, school filters, and alternate inboxes.
3. If their organization blocks automated email, ask their IT admin to allow ALLO mail.
4. Use the full checklist in When an invite does not arrive.

If they accepted the invite but still cannot see the workspace, check the account they are signed in with. Many “invite failed” cases are actually account mismatch cases.

Permission and visibility notes

Only workspace members appear in People and teams. Guests and external collaborators usually appear in the sharing surface of the item they can access, not in the workspace directory.

Inviting someone to the workspace can affect billing or seat usage depending on your plan. If the invite action asks you to add seats or adjust billing, review the cost before continuing. See Open billing.

If a person is deactivated in the workspace, old links should not reopen access. Ask a workspace admin to review their status. Recovery may mean reactivating the member, not sending another invite. See Access a deactivated workspace.

If a workspace uses an allowed email domain, invites should go to an address on that domain. If the recipient accepts with a personal account or a different organization account, they may fail the workspace policy even though the email invitation itself arrived.

Common mistakes

The biggest mistake is inviting a person to the workspace when they only need one canvas. That makes them a member of the workspace, not only a reviewer of that item.

Another common mistake is giving admin access because someone needs edit access. Admin access controls the workspace. Edit access controls a specific item. Use the narrower permission that fits the job.

Teams also sometimes send the invite to a personal email while the person signs in with a work or school account. ALLO treats those as different identities. Ask the recipient which account they are using before sending another invite.

Recover when an invite does not work

If the invite button is missing, ask a workspace admin to confirm your role, workspace plan, seat capacity, and domain policy. If you are not allowed to invite, or the workspace is a one-person Edu/Edu Pro plan, the control may be hidden.

If the email does not arrive, verify the address, resend once, then use When an invite does not arrive to check spam, quarantine, and mail filtering.

If the recipient accepted but cannot find the workspace, have them sign out and sign in with the invited email. Then confirm the active workspace with Switch workspaces.

If the recipient can see the workspace but not the work, check the item permission. Use Share work with teammates or Share a canvas.

If the invite was meant for a former member, check deactivated status before retrying. A deactivated member may need admin recovery, not a duplicate invite.