Hiding Formulas

Werner Doubell

Hi,

 

I am designing solutions for several clients on Smartsheet. Is there a way to hide the formula so it doesn't display when you "mouse over" it? 

 

I don't want the clients to see "my magic" - very easy for them to copy it and do it themselves...

 

Thx

 

Werner

J. Craig Williams

There is no way to hide the tooltip.

Some of your clients will be Admin's of the sheets and whatever you could hide, they will be able to unhide.

This isn't like an MS Office VBA solution where the code is behind the scenes.

If you really need to do that, try the API. You can provide a binary or web-solution where everything is done 'magically'. 

Or make sure your terms and conditions (T&C's) protect your intellectual property (IP)

 

Most consultants, I believe, struggle with this.

I can do a really complicated formula in about 15 minutes.

It looks easy when I am done, but it took a long time to get to the point where formulas (or whatever skill you have) are second nature.

 

There's the story of the man brings a car to a shop because of a noise and rough engine idle. The mechanic says it will be $750 to fix. The man says OK. The mechanic takes a small hammer and taps lightly on the rear tail-light. The car runs great.

The man says "$750 for two taps of a hammer?" 

The mechanic replies - $5 for the tapping. $745 for knowing where to use it.

 

Craig

 

Scott Medd

What i would suggest is the following:

 

Say column 3 is where the magic formula is, keep the formula in there, in column 4 put a formula that is (=column3) then hide column 3.

 

This way all they can see is the result.

 

You just need to make sure that they are set to editor so that they cant edit column layout

J. Craig Williams

If you can get away with having them as only Editors, that works.

 

Most of my solutions are turned-over at the end - and that only delays the problem.

 

Craig