Temporarily Suspending a Licensed User

Stephanie G

We require our licensed users to conduct semi-annual user access reviews on their Smartsheets. They need to remove users who no longer need access rights and delete or archive smartsheets that are no longer needed. (See attached jpg) If they do not complete their review, I want to suspend their rights to Smartsheet until they complete it. 

From what I understand, I can accomplish this using the methods below, but I am hoping one of you can recommend a more efficient way. 

• Active Directory/SSO
  • Using this option will suspend all the user's rights, I just want to suspend the Smartsheet rights. 
• Create an AD Group for Smartsheet users so they have to have both AD and be in the group
  • This is the long term goal but I won't have it in place before the user review
• Change ownership
  • If I transfer the ownership of each sheet, I will then need to restore all the sheets once they complete their review. 
• Remove the license
  • I will have to add it back once they complete their review. We have almost 100 licensed users. 

I look forward to hearing your suggestions.

Thank you. 

Shaine Greenwood

Hi Stephanie,

Removing the license temporarily would be the best way to go about this.

You can bulk edit user info with the steps in our help center: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/795920-managing-users-multiuser-plans-#editbulkusers

This will help make the editing process easier for you.

It's IMPORTANT to know that if you remove a license from someone, sheets they own will become read only for 90 days, after which they will become deleted.

Stephanie G

Thank you, I did this, but I had to transfer ownership of all the sheets to me. Is there a way to do this without transferring the sheets to someone else? 

Shaine Greenwood

Hi Stephanie,

One of my colleagues just tested this: if you use the bulk update option, sheets aren't automatically transferred to you, they remain in the unlicensed users accounts.

This might be the best option for you as you're removing licenses en masse.

If you need to remove licenses individually (also referenced in the help article from my previous post), you can uncheck the box for "Transfer all sheets to another user" and the sheets will remain in the unlicensed user's account.

To reiterate an important aspect of this, if you remove someone's license and opt to leave sheets in their account, they will become read only for up to 90 days, after which they will be automatically deleted from that user's account.

You'll want to either add that user's license back to make sheets that they own editable again, or around the 90 day point, transfer their sheets to a licensed user.