User Access to SharePoint Online Using SharePoint Designer

I ran into an issue getting access to a SharePoint Online site page with SharePoint Designer: I had to create a workflow on that site, however I was constantly prompted for credentials. After some hours of troubleshooting with the Microsoft IT help team, we found teh following: we have been capable of pinpoint the basis cause.

Summary of Issue:

The purchaser supplied webweb page series administrator get admission to to my account the use of my paintings email. In different words, I became capable of get admission to the webweb page series as an administrator at the same time as being an outside person on their Azure Active Directory. Everything became best thru the web, however as soon as I attempted to connect with the equal webweb page with SharePoint Designer, I could get continuous (very annoying) prompting.are 

 

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The Office 365 login prompt kept coming back even though I was a site collection administrator

Steps to Consider When Troubleshooting SharePoint Designer

The below steps are helpful when you are encountering “weirdness” using SharePoint Designer. They did not work for my specific case (and you will see why shortly), but together they create a good troubleshooting checklist to use before you should consider more advanced support. You will likely be asked to do the following steps when you first connect with Microsoft IT support, so completing them and preparing your answers ahead of time could save you 20–30 minutes of discussion with a technician.

• Update SPD to the latest version, or uninstall/reinstall using the latest official link
• Install SharePoint Designer SP1 1
• Clear the SharePoint Designer cache from the following directories: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WebsiteCache AND %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Web Server Extensions\Cache
• Log out of the Account tab on SharePoint Designer

Why Is This Happening?

First off, the site collection I was given access to was NOT the root site collection and that I had no access/privileges provided there. As you probably already guessed, this was the main cause of my issue. When you are connecting as an external user, SPD will try to authenticate you from the root site collection. Without access to the root site collection, you will fail the authentication request even though you are trying to get to another site collection.

Solution: 

Option 1. Request read access for the same external user account you are using, but this time do so from the root site collection. Depending on the organization’s policy, the data hosted, and the IT team you are working with, you may get that granted. Once you do gain access to the root site collection, you will be able to access the initial site (the one for which you are listed as site collection administrator) via SPD.

Option 2. Request a SharePoint license account (if the organization does not wish to pay for an additional Office 365 license) and set that new account as the site collection administrator of the desired site collection. With this option you will be able to access SPD at the non-root site collection without having access to the root site collection.