Sharing a sheet - viewer is prompted for a login

Betsy Green

I am trying to share a sheet with a colleague. I set him as a Viewer and sent him the link. He is being prompted to log in. This person does not have a Smartsheet license and just needs view only access to the sheet. Can you please help me figure out how to fix this? I thought perhaps the problem was that the sheet was stored in a workspace, so I moved it, but that didn't help.

Eric Peery

Viewers will have to set a username and password, but they don't require or consume a license.

Betsy Green

Thank you!

J. Craig Williams

It is a little more complicated than that. This is just the highlights, in my opinion:

Users are linked to an email address.

A specific email address can be in only one Smartsheet account.

They can be licensed or unlicensed in your account or another account. That is, if they aren't in your account, they will be in another account.

Further, a User can be given the privileges of a Viewer, Editor, or Admin on each object (Sheet, Report, etc...) that they have access to.

A Licensed User (paid) can create and 'own' objects. An Unlicensed User can not. You could create a new Sheet and give a person that is not in your account Admin privileges to maintain the Sheet with very little tasks that they could not perform (there are a few).

These three Help Articles are useful:

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2476646-infographic-user-types-sharing-permissions-decoded

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/520100-user-types

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/1155182-sharing-permission-levels

Craig