- Why can't I open a Google file?
There are often times when you need to share or receive a Google file of some sort. It could be a folder, a Doc, a Sheet, a Slide, or some other form of document.
Sometimes when opening a received item is attempted, a message indicating you "Need Permission" will display. This can happen for many reasons, some easier to resolve than others.
*Please do NOT Request Access from the sender until you have attempted the options below. Frequently, that access has already been granted on the sender's end, but there is a different reason you can't see it yet.
1 - The first possible reason is that you might not be in the correct browser profile. This is very common and very likely to happen when you have multiple profiles on a browser like Google Chrome where you might have a personal profile and a work profile (and perhaps more).
If you aren't sure which browser you are in, you can find that information in the top right of your Chrome Browser by clicking on your Profile Image, then selecting which profile you want/need to be active in.
So if you were to click on a Google linked item from a PLI colleague, you must be logged into your PLI Profile in Google Chrome for your PLI based permissions to allow that item to open. If you are in a non-PLI profile, the item will most likely display the "Needs Permission" error.
In the event that you have the same icon/avatar image for both your work profile and your personal profile, be sure to use the email addresses to distinguish work from personal.
2 - The next possible issue is that while you might be logged into one profile in your browser, you might also have opened a different Gmail account to check your email. In that case, you would technically have two profiles competing with one another and possibly conflicting when you try to open a received document item.
3 - Another reason you might not yet be able to open the linked item you received is that you might not be logged into Google yet. Even if you were logged in earlier in the day, it is possible that Google logged you out for "timed out" reasons.
In that case, simply go to your Google Mail and log in. Here are three of the most common ways to do that:
A- In your Chrome browser, open a new tab, then look toward the top right for the word "Gmail"
B- Another option would be to click into the 9 dot "waffle" graphic
C- Yet another option would be to open any tab on any browser and paste or key the following link: https://mail.google.com/
(Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox will require this step)
"Needs Permission" error when accessing a work related website like Innovation Insider
This can happen for the same reasons described above in sections 1, 2, and 3. We see this from time to time where someone reports that "the site must be down because I'm getting an error message".
While that is sometimes true, more often than not, it's an issue with profile permissions and browser/profile confusion. If you follow the steps outlined above for sections 1, 2, and 3, you should find a way to make things work smoothly.
For an additional tip on how to manage situations like this, please read the next section.
How to avoid browser/profile confusion
In general, it might be a wise idea to handle all work related duties including work emails, opening work documents, opening work training documents in one browser, and then handling all personal duties in a completely separate browser.
For example: You might choose to do all work duties in Google Chrome and all personal duties in Mozilla Firefox.
The advantage here is that you should never hit a point where a document won't open due to profile access or permissions. Many folks in Support and IT fields report using this method to manage the two different realms (work vs personal).
*If none of these above steps made your document visible and viewable, then please contact the sender to ask for access permission. At this point, it may be that something was misconfigured in the setup.