If External Users can be Paid Members under USM, does that mean they can be Owners?

Trang Turtletraxx

Under the new USM, since external users can be provisional Members with the same access as a paid Member and then move on to a paid Member, does that mean they will now have the option to be assigned as an Owner of an asset they are shared to? Or will they still be limited to Admin permission level as the highest level?

Naeem Ejaz

User Type	Can Be Assigned as Owner?	Max Sheet Permission Level
Licensed Member (Internal)	✅ Yes	Owner/Admin
Licensed Member (External)	✅ Yes (if licensed)	Owner/Admin
Provisional Member	❌ No	Admin (not Owner)
Free User / Viewer	❌ No	Viewer/Editor/Admin (limited)

Trang Turtletraxx

@Naeem Ejaz can you send me the link where you found this table?

Naeem Ejaz

from chatgpt i got that table anyways i think extetnal members can be owners as per below attached smartsheet usm documentation.

IMG_8261.jpeg

Smartsheet-user-subscription-brief.pdf

Naeem Ejaz

and if you share a file to the external contact with edit rights he can request the owner access from you from his side also.

Trang Turtletraxx

Yeah I've read all the articles, and although it tells you what paid Members can create, it doesn't specifically say they can have "Owner" permissions even though when a user creates an asset by default the user is given Owner permission, I just want to see it documented as such.

If this is true, what that means is if a Guest or external Viewer never actually creates an asset, if a user transfers ownership of an asset to an external user as an Owner, that external user is then automatically upgraded to a provisional/paid Member. We are establishing a policy that prevents any external user from being a paid Member (i.e. we would downgrade them to Guests every time). But if an external user is an Owner of an asset and there is no other identified Owner or Admin shared to that asset, then we have to think about how we handle ownership transfer of assets, items created in premium apps that can only be transferred manually by the current owner and how we (system admins) would manage that process to ensure there is no disruption in other users using that specific asset or solution the asset is linked to.

External users shared with Admin permissions can easily be downgraded to Guest without all the other "stuff" to consider if the external user was an Owner of an asset.