New user forced to start trial before they could edit sheet

RoyK

An employee created a smartsheet account to view and edit a vendor smartsheet. He was not able to edit until he clicked try for 30 days? I can not go back and see if his share permissions have changed since agreeing to start trial but is currently listed as editor. How can I know if user needs license to edit content without waiting 30 days and hoping nothing changes???

Ray Lindstrom

Hi @RoyK,

A free collaborator type user can edit without having to create a trial account. The trial account is for being able to create and own smartsheet items like full paid users can.

An invite to a sheet will allow the user to click the link, provide a password, select a team (I instruct users to select "not now"), and then they can edit away.

Best of luck!

BRgds,

-Ray

RoyK

Can we disable trial to test. I was not involved in initial setup. If there is a way to disable trial and verify edit rights and reenable if something breaks that would be optimal. I agree with your response that is the way smartsheet says it will work but I need to safely verify this functionality in case it does not work. If you have any insight on this, I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

-Roy

Steve_Mitchell

Unfortunately, you cannot disable the free trial which is really annoying. There is another thread at Disable License Trial — Smartsheet Community you can upvote. It's also not as simple as Ray states as a user will need to still jump through some hoops before they can participate , plus they automatically get the free trial.

Ray Lindstrom

@Steve_Mitchell,

Thanks for the input and link to upvote to disable the free trial offer.

Inviting users as collaborators via sharing is as simple as I stated. I do this almost everyday. What hoops are you speaking of?

Steve_Mitchell

Hi @Ray Lindstrom. Now with account discovery disabled it is better. If I share a sheet with someone all they need to do is create an account pwd so that's not bad. When I was adding them as users they had to answer question like what is your industry, position, etc.

But... now I find out that when I share the sheet they are not listed as a user so they don't show up in my list so I have no way of managing them - even as simple as inputting their first and last name so when I add them to projects as resources they just show their email and not name. I think SS really needs to improve onboarding of users for Business Plan, not everyone needs all the Enterprise features for user management needs to be easier.

Ray Lindstrom

@Steve_Mitchell,

Glad to hear you got it worked out.

Sorry to hear you're having troubles managing the collaborator users. I share your pain on that one, and agree that smartsheet could do better in helping us manage the free users especially. When someone enters a new user's name wrong, I have to go to my users to have them update their own names via their Personal Settings.

Steve_Mitchell

@Ray Lindstrom

Thanks, not really worked out. I'm just going to have to add them as users in the admin portal and they're just going to have to go through the initial setup. It's the only way to get them in there properly and be able to manage them properly. When I get some time I'm certainly going to write it up for enhancement so maybe it helps someone down the road. The sheet sharing really is only viable for maybe a handful of external collaborators, not useful for 'free editors' in your company.