Open the Permissions tab in your data room, copy a group's access link, and send it via email, Slack, or LinkedIn. Recipients open it in any browser — no Peony account required.

The most important decision: one link per investor, not one link for everyone.

1. Open the Permissions Tab

Click Permissions in the data room sidebar. There is no default group. The empty state reads Create a new group to share your data room with a Create new group button. Click it to create your first group.

Each group has its own access link, its own security stack, and its own visitors. Create one group per counterparty (more on that below).

Data room Permissions tab: the Groups sidebar with a per-group toggle, a Copy access link shortcut, and a Create new group button, next to the group wizard step 1 Visitors with Email access selected

2. Set Up the Group

Creating or editing a group is a two-step wizard.

Step 1 — Visitors. Set the Group name, choose the Access mode (Email access or Link access), and add People with access ("Enter email or domain," then Add). Email access emails each recipient a personal link; Link access gives you one link to send yourself.

Step 2 — Document permissions. Set what this group can see and do, folder by folder and file by file (No access / View / Download / Upload).

When you open an existing group there are two tabs: Security and Visitors.

Security holds the security controls as a grid of cards — email-gated access (with email verification and the allow/block list inside it), password protection, expiry, dynamic watermark, one-click NDA, screenshot protection, access questions, AI document Q&A (where the room supports it), and an appearance card — plus a Permissions table below the grid for per-folder and per-file access (No access / View / Download / Upload).
Visitors holds the group name, the access mode, and the people with access.

Several controls are plan-gated:

Business ($30/admin/mo) and up: email verification, allow/block visitor list, download prevention (turning downloads off), basic screenshot protection.
Data Room ($52/admin/mo) and up: dynamic watermark, custom access questions, domain-restricted access, advanced screenshot protection (Screenshield), granular per-file document permissions.

Full walkthrough: Permission & Security Settings.

3. Copy and Send

Click Copy access link next to the group and paste it into any channel — your email, Slack, LinkedIn. Peony also has a built-in invite flow if you want to send from inside the product with delivery tracking. See Invite Viewers.

Why One Link Per Investor

Share one link with two investors and you lose the ability to tell them apart in analytics. Both show up with whatever email they entered.

One link per investor gets you:

Per-investor watermarks (carries their email, not a generic one)
Per-investor analytics — pages read, dwell time, click order
Per-investor revocation without affecting others
Per-investor settings — NDA gate for one, not another

Name each group after the counterparty. If a group still shows a template name, open it, edit the Group name under Visitors, and Save (bottom right) — the visitor-facing name is edited under Visitors, not in the room's Settings tab.

New Room vs New Link?

Create a new room when the deal or audience is different:

New fundraising round — new room (keeps analytics clean)
Different buyer for the same sell-side deal — same room, new link
Different sector investors, same pitch deck — same room, new link
Different client, different engagement — new room

Rule of thumb: one room per deal, one link per counterparty.

When a Link Breaks

If a recipient reports "link not found," it was regenerated or deleted after you sent it. Generate a fresh link and resend.

If the invite email never arrived on an Email access group, use the Resend invite to N button on the link row (Business plan and up). It re-sends the invitation email to every recipient on that link. There is a 5-minute cooldown per link, so wait before resending again. If it still does not land, check spam — some corporate mail filters (notably Microsoft Defender) silently quarantine Peony messages. As a fallback, use Copy access link and paste the URL into your own email client. If a whole company can't receive Peony mail, ask their IT to whitelist peony.ink.

Common Mistakes

One link to a group email alias. Zero per-person analytics. Create individual groups instead.
Leaving downloads on for sensitive content. By default a group can download. Turn downloads off before sharing. Download prevention is a Business feature — on Free the Allow downloads toggle shows a "Requires Business plan" badge.
Relying only on the watermark. Combine with downloads off, screenshot protection, and an NDA gate. Dynamic watermark and Screenshield are Data Room tier. See Access Control Layers.
Regenerating the link after sending. The old URL stops working. Decide settings before you send.
Switching a group's access mode after adding people. Toggling a group between Email access and Link access can drop the emails you already entered. Pick the access mode first, then add visitors.

Common Questions

Do I need a Peony account for the recipient to open the link? No. Recipients open the access link in any browser, no account required. On an Email access group they may need to verify their email; on Link access they open the link directly (add an email gate if you want to capture who viewed).

How do I share the same room with several bidders without them seeing each other? Invitees never see which other parties are invited, whether they are in the same group or separate groups. For fewer than 8-10 counterparties, create one group per party so you get per-party watermarks, analytics, and revocation. For more than that, group by diligence stage (early / mid / late).

Can I reuse one group across two data rooms? No. Groups are scoped to a single data room. Re-create the same visitors in each room.

The invite email never arrived — how do I resend it? On an Email access group (Business and up), click Resend invite to N on the link row to re-send to all recipients. Wait 5 minutes between resends per link. If it still fails, use Copy access link and send the URL yourself.

How long do free-tier links last? Free includes a demo data room that is shareable for 3 days only, and its analytics expire with it. A real, persistent data room needs Business or above.

Can I extend or change a live room's link expiry? Yes on a paid plan. Open the group, adjust the expiry under Security, and Save. Note that setting an expiry does not trigger an upgrade prompt on its own — if you see one, a higher-tier control (usually dynamic watermark, a Data Room feature) is enabled on that group. Turn it off to save the expiry on Business.

Share a Data Room Link