So, I seem to be finding problem after problem with the Grist platform. We have a self hosted version of Grist running in a Kubernetes cluster. I have been working to learn the nuts and bolts of Grist and starting to get my head around it as a product.
What I have been doing in the last couple of days is inviting users to access some of the Grist applications that I have been working on. Strange thing is no one has been accepting my invitations to join.
Looking deeper, it seems the self hosted version does not include any ability to send EMAILS. If you cant send emails, whats the point of invites? The invited part will never receive any form of notification to let them know that they have been invited in the first place.
I know that email are available in the “paid” version or the online version, but I choose to keep things in-house. If this is the case then doesn’t this render Grist user management a bit of a joke? or am I missing something?
Hi @Alan_Scott.
Email notifications are available in the Enterprise edition of self-managed Grist. This is normally a paid offering, but we do offer free keys to individuals and organizations making less than $1 million in total annual income. You can fill out this form if you qualify.
In any case, you can definitely still keep things in-house even on the Enterprise edition of self-managed Grist.
George
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If this is the case then doesn’t this render Grist user management a bit of a joke? or am I missing something?
as I am not part of the Grist team, just a user of the free self hosted version, I am not as polite as the Grist personel, who are being very nice despite you creating threads calling Grist “a bit of a joke”.
You should be more polite too, and stop calling Grist a joke and juvenile because you don´t understand the features. It’s totally valid to ask questions, but not diss Grist at the same time you make a question created by YOUR misunderstanding.
I like very much helping people around the forums. And I don´t remember this kind of attitude so far.
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we do offer free keys to individuals … making less than $1 million in total annual income
Those poor beggars. How do they even manage to live? 
(I suppose you offer free keys to individuals (independent of income) OR to business who make less than 1 million a year 
Na, dont want any keys - do you have it documented on how we are supposed to add users if we cant send invites? Maybe some type of notification that lets you know that the invite will not be sent to the user also - rather than just nothing?
I see this this a request that has been asked for many times.
link to #how-do-i-set-up-a-team
How do I set up authentication?
Authentication can be set up in many ways for Grist Core and Enterprise, using SAML, OpenID Connect or forwarded headers. Between the two, many popular SSOs can be hooked up, such as Google or Microsoft sign-ins.
For any authentication method, you may want to also consider setting the following variables:
-
COOKIE_MAX_AGE: (optional) expiration date for Grist session cookie, when set to none session cookie will be in a Session mode - it should be removed after closing a browser. If set to a number, the units of the number are milliseconds.
-
GRIST_FORCE_LOGIN: (optional) when set to true this will instruct Grist to redirect anonymous users to a login page.
For our SaaS, we use a custom authentication system based around AWS Cognito. Currently, we have no plans to release that as part of Core or Enterprise.
Yea, we already have Authentik integrated. I was trying to use the internal Grist “invite” system to add users.
The problem here is not that it doesn’t work, but rather that there is no information to inform the initiator of the invites that the invitation is not supported in the “Free” self-hosted version. Seems a little odd that it works just fine in the Free, Grist-hosted version.
You can add users even if email notifications are not set up. The user does not need to accept an invite by e.g. clicking a link in an email – once you add an email address to a document, site, etc., whenever the user with that email address signs in to Grist, they’ll have access. This can be done before or after they’ve signed in for the first time via your authentication provider.
Perhaps the wording/terminology could be tweaked to make it clearer that it’s not an invitation, which implies the invitee needs to respond in some way.
George
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He has a point however. The system uses the word INVITE when you add emails
Unless you ALREADY understand the details, it leads news users to think the system will send invitations to join.
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