Allowing Team Members to update Smartsheet

I wanted to give the ability to my team to update Smartsheet directly. However Editor access has the ability to do too much, e.g. delete row. If i lock the row, team can't edit Status, % Complete and Comments, which is truly what i want the team to update.

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J. Craig Williams

You might try Update Requests.

Or locking the columns, not the rows.

Hope that helps.

Craig

Sham K

Unfortunately update requests means i need to push to get the update. I would like people to do this themselves. Locking the columns and not the rows still allows someone to delete the row once they have Editor access.

Thanks

Sham

J. Craig Williams

Sham,

Why would they want to delete the row?

Craig

Sham K

I'm trying to prevent the accidental deletion of a row.

J. Craig Williams

Sham,

OK. The alternative is not fixed with Smartsheet.

Craig

Brad Jones

Sham,

This is something we have been crying for here in the Smartsheet community. We simply cannot rely on hope that the user won't make mistakes. This is a data security issue, and needs to be fixed.

I'll put my +1 here as well, but below are some identical and similar threads on the same topic of allowing editors some rights but not ALL rights like deleting the whole row.

August 2015

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/avoid-shared-person-delete-my-row

June 2015

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/rows-being-removed

March 2016

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/prevent-deletion-rows-if-it-contains-locked-cells

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/find-deleated-items#comment-9452

For now, make sure that you have your backups scheduled.

Sham K

Thank you Brad. I appreciate the follow up and information around this issue. I will keep fingers crossed that this is resolved soon since it truly distrupts collobation ability by allowing teams to be efficient as well as keep our project plans secure.

Similar to many others who have commented, I also regard this as a defect or bug, as opposed to a future enhancement to be considered for implementation.

Best Regards and Thank You.

Brad Jones

I was soooo hoping that this bug would have been solved with the latest update of SS, but alas it is not. While we have new integration features with other programs, sadly we are still stuck with this really big problem. We only have real data security if we don't share with editing rights - or create lengthy workarounds with reports or manual update requests.

SS, PLEASE fix this.

If it's not going to be fixed soon, please suggest a practical workaround where I can share a 1300 row 25 column sheet with teams, and only let them edit the last 10 columns, AND not allow them to delete any rows.

Tony Davidson - SmartSheet Certified User 2016

If you just publish the link to them and you have locked the row that should achieve what you're trying.

Brad Jones

Tony,

Thanks for the idea, but when I tested this it does not achieve the objective. The goal here is to prevent deletion of rows that are NOT locked. Such that users can access some of the cells within the row and still not be able to delete the entire row. If I publish and lock the row, it works the same as if I share and lock the row - the user cannot delete the row and the cannot edit anything in the row. So it's showing information but not collaborating.

The current program is risk the whole row or nothing at all, and that's a very bad model considering that we don't have true sheet/workspace backups that preserve cell history and formatting.

Tony Davidson - SmartSheet Certified User 2016

Ok..seems like a support@smartsheet.com scenario..

J. Craig Williams

Seems like the easiest solution would be elevate the privilege required for row deletion to the Admin.

Or am I missing something?

Craig

Tony Davidson - SmartSheet Certified User 2016

just because I've never done that..can you describe how that would be done?

Kennedy Stomps

Hi Tony-- I think Craig was suggesting that as a product enhancement, as it's not something that's available in Smartsheet right now. It's something our development and product teams are currently working to figure out the best solution for.

For many users, it's important to their workflow that editors can delete rows, so I believe we're going more in the direction of providing better backup and sheet history systems, rather than significantly changing the permission levels that exist right now. Of course, these development goals could always change, this is just where we stand right now!