Shift license and owned sheet at same time to new user

Frank Piazza

I have 6 licenses and 6 licensee's and want to transfer a license to a new person from a current person and transfer the owned sheets to the new person.  Problem is that the license needs to exist with the new person to give the sheets to that person, but i can't give them the license until i move the owned sheets.  I hate to have to transfer the owned sheets to someone else and then re-transfer them to the new person after the license is moved.

is there a way around this?

thanks - Frank

Shaine Greenwood

Hi Frank,

There's a great technique for transferring sheet ownership that you can use. This does require YOU to be licensed user:

1. Create a workspace (more on this in the help center)
2. Have the current owner create a new folder in their Home tab and drag all of the sheets into that folder
3. Have them then drag the entire folder into your workspace; this will transfer ownership of them all to you
4. Remove their license and give that license to your new employee
5. Share that workspace to your new employee, then have them drag the folder into their Sheets folder (they'll see this in their home tab)

The steps above ensure that sheets won't become temporarily read only so there's no work stoppage.

If you're able to handle the removal/transfer in one fell swoop, you might consider this alternative option. This will temporarily cause sheets to become read-only, but they'll go back to normal at the end of the process:

1. Remove the license from the user (this will make all items they own read-only)
2. Add the license to the new user
3. Transfer ownership of items from the unlicensed user to the newly licensed user with the steps here: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/520103-change-the-owner-sheet-report-dashboard#bulk