When an "Owner" leaves the company...

I am in a Division of the company; the division has multiple departments. Each departments uses Smartsheet to various degrees and there is quite a bit of crossover and linking to each others sheets. It's been working great.

We recently encountered a situation that caused some…. angst. An employee who was the owner of about 50 sheets left the company immediately, so there was no transferring of ownership to other people . Company policy is that their whole profile (software licenses, inc) is turned off (for obvious reasons). No Smartsheet Owner… no owner sheets. I was able to stop the account from being turned off and the sheets were transferred to someone else who has a full license but is not someone who uses Smartsheet on any more than a very basic level and all that person is doing is handing out Admin rights to people.

Have you ever encountered a situation similar to this? Where the OWNER of the sheet has left the company? If so, how was it handled in your company? I know there has to be a better way of doing this.

Thanks, in advance, for your insights

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Naeem Ejaz

In Smartsheet, the term "Power User" isn’t an official role, but it’s commonly used across organizations to describe someone who:

A Smartsheet Power User is someone who:

Has advanced knowledge of Smartsheet features
Regularly builds or manages complex solutions
Supports or trains others within their team or organization
Often serves as a go-to expert for workflows, automations, formulas, dashboards, and integrations

Even if someone doesn’t have admin access, they can still be a power user if they’re skilled in building and maintaining solutions across shared assets.

Who Are Typically Power Users?

Project Managers
Business Analysts
Operations Leads
PMO or IT Admins
Anyone who builds and maintains solutions for multiple users

If you're a System Admin, you can:

Go to Admin Center > User Management
Select the user
Click Transfer Owned Items
Choose a new licensed user or the system account

⚠️ This keeps sharing, permissions, and workflows intact — just with a new owner.

LDP

Appreciate you answering the question, but it really wasn’t about me calling someone a “power user”.

Corporate has a team of System administrators and does not dole them out on a division level. I was looking more for ideas on User/Best Practices level.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to answer.

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