Admin | Establish and manage a trusted-party relationship

Admin | Establish and manage a trusted-party relationship

6 min read
Available with these plans:
Starter
Basic
Pro
Enterprise
10 trusted parties
10 trusted parties
To upgrade your Lark Plan or for more information, contact Support or your Customer Success Manager. The Lark Basic plan supports only specific countries and regions.
I. Intro
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Who can perform these steps: Primary administrators or administrators with "External Collaborations" permission.
Trusted party refers to the one-to-one relationships with other organizations of trust (an organization can have multiple trusted parties). A trusted-party relationship allows safe and convenient collaboration between two organizations, as members communicate without needing to first add each other as contacts.
Administrators can decide which of the members and departments are shared, as well as the visibility of members' profile fields. Share the article with the primary administrator of the other organization that you'd like to establish a trusted party relationship with to facilitate the process.
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II. Steps
This article will explain the process of establishing a trusted-party relationship using the example of Organization A and Organization B.
Organization A shares its trusted-party QR code invitation with Organization B, which will scan the code and submit a request to connect with Organization A.
Establish a trusted-party relationship
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Notice:
  • Either of the organizations must be on the Lark Pro or Enterprise plan, and haven't run out of the quota of trusted parties. This organization must scan the QR code of the other organization to build a trusted party.
  • If both organizations are on either the Starter or Basic plan, they can't build a trusted party with each other.
  1. As a primary administrator of Organization A, go to the Lark Admin Console and click External Collaborations > Trusted Parties.
  1. Click Share Invitation Code in the upper-right corner to generate a QR code.
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  1. Click Save to download the QR code. Share it with a primary administrator at Organization B. You can click Reset to make all previously generated QR codes invalid and generate a new one.
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  1. Ask the primary administrator of Organization B to scan the QR code with the Feishu Lark app and submit the request following the steps below:
  1. Tap Share departments or members and select the departments and members to be shared. Or skip both steps to submit the request directly and set the sharing scope in the Lark Admin Console later.
  1. Set the visibility level of shared members and departments:
  • Members from trust party can view my organizational structure: Members of Organization A can search for and view shared departments and members of Organization B in Contacts.
  • Members from trust party can only search members I shared: Members of Organization A can only search for shared departments and members of Organization B, but not see them in Contacts.
  1. Tap Submit Request.
  1. Do either of the following to approve the request:
  • Click Review on the notification card to open the Request List in the Lark Admin Console.
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  • Open the Lark Admin Console and click External Collaboration > Trusted Party > Request List.
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  1. Click Approve next to the request, then click Accept to confirm your decision.
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    Note: Every day at 10:00 AM, the system will automatically check whether there are any unprocessed trusted-party requests. If there are, the Admin Assistant will send a notification to the primary administrators.
Set the sharing scope
Once the trusted-party relationship is built, the administrators of both organizations can specify which members and departments to share with each other.
  1. Open the Lark Admin Console and click External Collaborations > Trusted Parties > Details.
  • Note: The priority of custom settings is higher than default settings.
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  1. In the Trusted party details pane, click the Edit members shared by this organization icon next to Sharing scope of my organization to set members that you want to share with Organization B.
  • You can select all members or departments and members.
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  1. To set the permission of shared members from the other organization, click Edit on the Permissions tab under the Permission granted from us to the other organization section.
  • Access permission: By default, the trusted organization can find the members of your organization by searching, and see the organization structure of those members in Contacts. You can hide the organization structure by clicking Edit > Custom and deselect the second check box.
  • Fields that can be viewed and searched: Click Edit > Custom and set the following as needed.
  • Visibility scope of member profile: Select which fields of your organization's members' profiles will be visible to the members of the other organization.
  • Field filters: Set which profile fields will be searchable by members of the other organization.
  • You can also view the scope of permissions granted by the other organization under the Permission granted from the other organization to us section.
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  1. Go to the Collaboration Rules tab, click Add Rule > the Edit icon to select or search members within the shared scope of both parties, and click Save.
  • The rule determines which members of your organization can view and search for the shared members of the other organization.
  • Note: If no rules are set, members of your organization won't be able to view or search for any shared members of the other organization.
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  1. If your organization has multiple rules, you can also search for collaboration rules by member, department, or user group in the search bar to find your target quickly.
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Use case of sharing scope: One-way visibility and partial access
You can set a one-way visibility rule or a partial access rule to configure the visibility of your members.
The following description again uses the example of Organization A (your organization) and Organization B (the other organization).
One-way visibility
As the administrator of Organization A, you can allow your members to view members of Organization B, but prevent members of Organization B from viewing your members. In this scenario:
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  • Private chats between the two organizations' members can only be started by your members; the member of Organization B can't initiate a conversation.
  • Once a private chat already exists before the visibility changes, members from both organizations can still send messages.
  • If the organizations are no longer trusted parties, members of both organizations can continue to send messages in existing private chats, if they have added each other as contacts.
  • If the organizations are no longer trusted parties, and the members have not added each other as contacts, they may be able to find each other using phone numbers, although this will depend on the privacy settings on each side.
  • If a member blocks another member, the blocked member will not be able to send a private message to the other.
Partial access
You can allow only some of your members to view members of Organization B. In this scenario, the chosen members (a-1) can start chats with Organization B members without adding them as contacts. Other members (a-2) will need to add them as contacts before sending a message.
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Global settings for trusted parties
In External Collaborations > Trusted Parties > Global Settings, you can end trusted-party relationships and change visibility.
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You can set the following options in the Default Settings tab:
  • Click Edit next to Access permission > Custom to set whether to allow the shared members of the other organization to check your organizational structure in their Contacts.
  • Click Edit next to Fields that can be viewed and searched > Custom to set the visible fields and searchable fields of member profiles. By default, only Name is visible and searchable.
  • Fields that can be viewed by members of the other organization: You can select both default fields, such as city, department, job title, and email or custom fields.
  • Fields that can be searched by members of the other organization: Set which profile fields will be searchable by members of the other organization.
  • Note: By default, only the Name field is searchable by members of the other organization.
  • Note: Only if you select the field in both visible and searchable fields, the shared members of the other organization can search for your shared members through that field.
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    You can set whether it requires approval to remove the trust relationship in the Trust Settings. If required, the other organization needs to wait for the approval of the administrator of your organization before it can end the trust relationship.
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Remove a trusted party
  1. Open the Lark Admin Console and click External Collaborations > Trusted Parties.
  1. Find the trusted party you wish to remove. Click Details > the ··· More icon in the upper-right corner > Remove Trust.
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  1. In the pop-up window, click Remove.
  • The trusted-party relationship will be severed immediately if the other organization doesn't require approval for the removal of trust.
  • If they do require approval, then the relationship will only end after one of the trusted party's primary administrators has approved your action.
Administrators on both sides will receive a notification about the removal from Admin Assistant.
Once removed, members of both organizations:
  • Won't be able to find one another if there's no existing private chat.
  • Will have to add the other as external contacts to continue with the existing chat.
III. FAQs
I saw a notification that "the available scope for this organization has been changed from the entire organization to 'only within the sharing scope'", what does this mean?
In future, only members that your organization has shared with the trusted party will be able to view and search for members of the trusted party. However, to prevent disruption, Lark will temporarily not put this restriction into effect. It is recommended that you add members who will need to collaborate with trusted party members to the sharing scope.
Note: You can only add members or departments that are included in the Trusted party details > Sharing scope of my organization.
If members are not added to the sharing scope, the effects on collaboration after the abovementioned restriction takes effect will be as follows:
  • If a member of Organization A had an existing chat with a member of Organization B, they will still be able to see the chat after the restrictions take effect, but won't be able to continue to send messages. To continue the chat, the member of Organization A will have to add the Organization B member as an external contact.
  • If a member of Organization A didn't have an existing chat with a member of Organization B, they won't be able to search for, view, or initiate a chat with the Organization B member.
What collaboration scenarios do trusted-party relationships facilitate?
After forming a trusted-party relationship, the two organizations will have the following capabilities, depending on their configurations.
Scenario
Capability
Search
Search by the name of the other organization's members in Lark Docs, video meetings, and more.
Contacts
View shared departments and members of the other organization in Contacts > Trust Parties.
View profile
  • View the profile page of shared members of the other organization.
  • Add shared members of the other organization as starred contacts.
Chat
  • Start chats with shared members of the other organization.
  • Add shared members of the other organization to a chat group.
Calendar events
  • View the availability of shared members of the other organization.
  • Invite shared members of the other organization to events.
Tasks
Add shared members of the other organization as task owners or subscribers.
Meetings
Start audio/video meetings with shared members of the other organization.
Docs
  • Share documents with shared members of the other organization.
  • @Mention shared members of the other organization.
Minutes
Share minutes with shared members of the other organization.
Approval
  • Select shared departments and members of the other organization in the Contacts and Department widgets during approval form design.
  • Select shared members of the other organization as the approver, CC'ed person, or handler.
I’m not sure which members of my organization will need to communicate with the other organization. Should I share all members?
We don't recommend that. The primary administrators of the other organization can allow all of their members to see all the departments and members shared by your organization, meaning that any member of the other organization would be able to see your entire organizational structure in their Contacts. Please think carefully before sharing all members.
Why can't the members find the "Trust Parties" option in Contacts, search for or find members from a trusted party?
Possible reasons are:
  • The administrator has not configured Collaboration Rules, so organization members can't see the Trust parties option in Contacts.
  • Solution: Configure which departments and members of the organization can see certain departments and members of the other organization in Collaboration Rules. For more information, see the "Set the sharing scope" section for Organization A in this article.
  • The administrator has configured collaboration rules, but the members are not within the scope of the rule.
  • Solution: Add the members or their departments to the rule's scope.
When a member is removed from the sharing scope or the collaboration rules of a trusted party, will they be able to start a chat with members of that trusted party?
No. The member can still see their chat history with trusted-party members, but cannot send new messages until they add the trusted-party members as external contacts.
Why can't a member see the trust party after being added to shared members?
There is a sync delay of about one minute after adding or deleting members in a shared department. Please retry later.
If a member no longer has external communication permissions, can they communicate with members of a trusted party?
The member can still communicate with members shared by the trusted parties, but they will not be able to communicate with external contacts outside any trusted parties (even if they communicated previously, they won't be able to anymore).
Can members who are not permitted to add external collaborators or activate external sharing still share documents with members of trusted organizations?
Yes. Administrators can go to Security > Member Permissions > Docs settings in the Lark Admin Console and allow sharing with all or some trusted parties.
Can an organization on the Starter or Basic plan establish a trusted party with an organization on other paid plans?
Yes, but with the following limitations:
  • The organization on the Starter or Basic plan must share the invitation QR code, and the other organization on the Pro or Enterprise plan scans the code and consumes the quota.
Note:
  • The private plan does not support trusted parties.
Can organizations establish trusted-party relationships with other products?
Lark supports establishing cross-border trusted-party relationships with organizations on Feishu. This feature is only available to organizations on Lark Enterprise and Feishu Enterprise Premium plans and needs to be purchased separately. For more information, please contact Support or your Customer Success Manager.
Written by: Lark Help Center
Updated on 2025-04-11
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