SmartSheet sharing - a frequently asked question - is there a better way to share items?

KarenTF

I want to share the whole workspace as viewer but then change permissions as needed on individual items, but it doesn't seem to be an option. I'm creating a very large system that requires several reports, metric sheets, etc to be displayed on the dashboard. The audience for this dashboard is very large (well over 100). Now on individual sheets, I would like for certain folks (managers, etc.) to be able to have more access permissions. What seemed like an obvious solution - to share entire workspace to everyone as Viewer, but change permissions individually on sheet items, is not an option. So now I have removed sharing everyone off of the workspace and it appears that I'll have to individually assign permissions to each sheet. The problem is that there are over 100 different sheets with multiple people needing sharing at different levels which means HUNDREDS of email notifications to these people if trying to assign things specifically. I've been looking through previous SmartSheet community questions going back to 2019 asking this same type of question. Has there been any updates to this and is there any better way to do this without flooding an entire company's email inboxes just to a achieve a simple task?

Genevieve P.

Hi @KarenTF

Yes you can do exactly that! Share everyone to the Workspace as Viewer (perhaps as a Group if they're all in the same Group).

Then you will need to share the individuals with higher permissions to the specific Item (versus Workspace) again... for a second time.

They will appear twice in the list - once in the Sheet and once for the entire Workspace:

Don't try to change the Workspace permission. Instead, go into the Sheet and type in their contact again to add them twice. This time, click the blue Share instead of Share to workspace. If you edit the sharing permissions for the line that has the Workspace icon, that will update their permission across the entire workspace. Does that make sense?

Cheers,

Genevieve

Toufong Vang

Hi, @KarenTF , granting a user "view" privileges at the workspace level, allows that user to see everything in the workspace. Elevated privileges (edit and others) can be granted at the sheet level. The screenshot below shows the different share levels for this particular sheet in the workspace.

Unchecking the box for "Notify people" at the time of sharing the item will prevent Smartsheet from sending an email notification to the users.

x

KarenTF

This will not work because once I try to change a person's access individually, I get this message and I do not want to give them that permission level for the whole workspace:

KarenTF

I would like to set a blanket level access permission for the whole group as Viewer and then be able to go back and assign the leadership higher access permission. But as it appears right now, it seems as though I can't give overall workspace access, which would be super helpful to make sure all individuals would see all the dashboards widgets from all the reports. I would then like to be able to adjust folks individual access per sheet.

Genevieve P.

Hi @KarenTF

Yes you can do exactly that! Share everyone to the Workspace as Viewer (perhaps as a Group if they're all in the same Group).

Then you will need to share the individuals with higher permissions to the specific Item (versus Workspace) again... for a second time.

They will appear twice in the list - once in the Sheet and once for the entire Workspace:

Don't try to change the Workspace permission. Instead, go into the Sheet and type in their contact again to add them twice. This time, click the blue Share instead of Share to workspace. If you edit the sharing permissions for the line that has the Workspace icon, that will update their permission across the entire workspace. Does that make sense?

Cheers,

Genevieve

KarenTF

Thank for clearing that up! This is what I needed, thanks again!