Restore Asset Creation Controls in Smartsheet USM

The removal of creation control has introduced several risks and administrative challenges for our team, particularly in terms of governance, data sprawl, and compliance. We’ve prepared a brief business case (attached) outlining the key impacts and the reasons this feature was important to our environment.

Summary of Key Concerns:

Lack of secure control over who can create sheets, reports, and dashboards now creates governance and data integrity risks.
API-based workarounds are insufficient — they are reactive, require technical resources, and can’t prevent creation.
Operational overhead is increasing due to the need for manual cleanup and monitoring.

We strongly request that Smartsheet:

Restore the prior functionality that allowed admins to restrict asset creation to a defined user list,

Introduce a new method (via UI or admin policy) to manage asset creation privileges at the account or group level.

This would align Smartsheet more closely with enterprise governance needs and reduce the burden now being placed on administrators.

This setting was there before. It shouldn’t be a heavy lift to restore it. See attached.

Smartsheet_USM_Creation_Control_Business_Case.pdf

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tim.wimmer49936

Fellow USM sufferers. Please review, share and Up Vote.

@Kelly Ospina @AngB789 @Leo2learn @Matt Kirby @Marc Hauge @jessica@phoenix @Nancy Lange @kim.parker79706 @Jason Hidek @Philip Robbins @Robbert @SmartsheetAdmin_Ben @RH_AON @Erin Kim @Eric B @PhilippK @Sanpfeif @Michael Chohrach @Trang Turtletraxx @Ishika Towfic @NeilTRD @tzaczyk

PhilippK

We fully support this position.

With this change, Smartsheet is behaving more like a B2C platform, while it claims to serve enterprise customers. Administrators must regain control over the system to ensure proper governance and compliance.

Ultimately, the lack of centralized and simple user management is pushing us to reconsider our use of Smartsheet. Without the ability to restrict asset creation, the platform introduces unnecessary risks and overhead for enterprise environments.

Restoring the previous functionality — or introducing a robust alternative — is not just a feature request, it’s a necessity for enterprise-grade administration.

Michael Chohrach

We also fully support this.

In fact, I similarly requested some type of administrative control over who could be "permanently" classified as a 'Member', to alleviate the ongoing burden the new USM was creating for us. Since they essentially replaced the "Licensed User" toggle with a non-modifiable "Member" toggle, it seems it should be fairly easy to just re-enable that toggle to allow an administrator to determine who could be a "Member" versus a "Viewer". This would be a good start, and should not place much of a burden on the modifications required to do so.

Trang Turtletraxx

WE 100% support this business case. The risks alone are significant. For a company like Smartsheet to ignore the risks the new model presents and not IMMEDIATELY address these and pause further conversions to USM is atrocious.

Smartsheet should also not assume companies have the resources to dedicate the full FTE needed to manage the ridiculous manual aspects of user management and security control. Up until now, we only needed a 0.2 FTE. It has taken 2.5 FTEs just to prepare for the conversion to USM

AngB789

100% support this! I also wish Smartsheet had the ability for Admins to view what members have created or a "mirror" account to see what they see.

NeilTRD

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/comment/491259#Comment_491259

I fully support this. We were lucky enough to just sneak into legacy subscription model before they changed to USM. We fully mobilized to unwind this application from our enterprise. As a result, we went from a 6 figure spend to a 4 figure spend.

The lack of governance for this platform is astonishing.

I'm not hopeful for any changes to be changes, though.

Philip Robbins

Thanks for tagging me in this post.

While I understand the frustrations expressed, which echo the sentiments of many clients I have spoken to, what is being asked for would have a fundamental impact on Smartsheet's monetisation model.

I don't begrudge Smartsheet seeking to increase its return on the platform, as even under USM the value proposition is strong (though generally not as strong for existing users moving to USM). However, the desire for businesses to exercise control over who can create new processes is equally valid, and is something that Smartsheet's model is expressly at odds with.

I read through the attached document and for those wishing the press the issue, I think the following point is likely to be the most persuasive, as Smartsheet is marketed as an enterprise platform:

Aligns with least-privilege and zero-trust IT models

I'll break out the popcorn and monitor where this goes with interest, but without the expectation of such a change coming any time soon.

Kelly Ospina

I agree as well, there needs to be a non-creator membership level. I have posted about this previously. Allowing memberships to be generated by non-Sys Admins is pure chaos. We also do not want everyone to be able to create. We have a robust need for an editor-only level membership. Creating this role, at a lower price-point, and returning control of membership creation to the Sys Ads would be a welcome change. The damage done to our Smartsheet adoption rate will take years to correct, if I can even convince the company to continue to use Smartsheet after our current contract ends. I know I am not alone in this, and I sincerely hope that someone with the ability to make this right within Smartsheet's leadership is paying attention.

Tom Zylstr

Lack of USM licensing controls has been one of the two most challenging aspects of USM.

The second challenge is the confusion surrounding how each of the complex USM processes work across all customer environments. I realized a consolidated & comprehensive technical reference that answered all USM "What" and "How" questions was missing.

So I developed a solution which I call "Mastering USM" that I have made available at no cost. If it is of possible interest to you registering to gain access is available here.

https://masteringusm.net

Hope this helps,

Tom Z

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