How do I move users from one account to another without loosing any sheets/tasks?

Rana TANVEER

We have two accounts in our org and would like to migrate all users to one account. Unfortunately, when we moved some test users they lost heir sheets/tasks after the transfer. How can we move users from one account to another without losing any sheets, data, ownership or task?

Paul Newcome

You could transfer ownership to a different user temporarily, make the account move, then transfer the ownership back.

Benjy

Updating this thread with the current best practices :)

If you would like assistance in this process, feel free to reach out to your Smartsheet team or Smartsheet support (with approvals from both the source and destination plan / instances system admins, support is able to move users between Smartsheet instances).

Preparation: Moving users between Smartsheet instances should be done in close coordination between the system administrators on the source and destination instances of the move to reduce downtime for users being moved. Make sure that the destination instance has enough available licenses to accommodate the users you want to move to this instance- if you do not have enough, you can acquire more and/or connect with your Smartsheet team for guidance. If you have premium add-ons like Pivot, Calendar, etc., I also highly recommend consulting with your Smartsheet contact / team to ensure the source and destination instances have the same features to ensure there is no disruption. As long as the destination instance has the same add-on features as the source and with ample quantities, there will be no loss of data in this move. Connectors like the Salesforce or Jira connector will need to be discussed with your Smartsheet team as well- unfortunately, the connector workflows set up by a users that is going to be moved will need to be recreated after the move. If your instance heavily uses group manager, resource manager, Salesforce admin, and other account level settings, it is worthwhile to export the user list from the source plan to then bulk restore these permissions on the destination instance. Finally, groups created by a user moving between instances will stay on the source plan, and there is not currently a way to transfer groups between Smartsheet instances.

Action: Once you have confirmed that the destination plan has the right add-ons and enough licenses, the source instance's system admin should delete users from the source plan that need to be and then move them to plan BUT, they should not reassign the owned items of these in the process, unless these assets should stay on the source plan and not with the user(s) being moved. If the asset ownership is not transferred in this process, when the user(s) being moved are deleted, these owned assets will enter a read only state that lasts 30 days and as soon as the user regains their license in the new instance, all of their assets will be restored into a full active state. All sharing permissions will be retained in this move as well. From here, you can use the bulk update feature to restore the miscellaneous permission levels of the users that have been moved. You can instruct the users that were moved to log out and log back into Smartsheet to recognize the changes and that they can proceed working on their assets (there should be very few noticeable changes outside of branding and maybe some new security controls like SSO).

Again, if you have any questions on this process, feel free to reach out to your Smartsheet team or Smartsheet support.

Paul Newcome

You could transfer ownership to a different user temporarily, make the account move, then transfer the ownership back.

Rana TANVEER

Thank you Paul, I was planning to do the same and wanted to find out if there is another way.

Do you think changing a user's setting to an unlicensed user would work instead of deleting the user?

Paul Newcome

Honestly I am not sure about that.

@Andrée Starå or @Genevieve P may know better than I do about those details.

Sean Morgan

Hello @Rana TANVEER

The process listed by @Paul Newcome would be one of the preferred methods of transferring documents. One other possible method would be to Export your sheets and store them locally. Please note that Exporting won't retain formatting or formulas. See more on this here: https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/770623-exporting-sheets-reports-from-smartsheet

Please let me know if you have any questions

Regards

Sean

Paul Newcome

@Sean Morgan Thanks for chiming in!!

Genevieve P.

Hi @Paul Newcome and @Rana TANVEER

I agree with what Paul & Sean said. Removing a license from a user to make them unlicensed would mean they would be unable to retain ownership of sheets (since unlicensed users can't own sheets). Therefore, I do think the best way would be to transfer everything to one of the users who is currently licensed on the new account.

The items will be kept in a folder that has the original user's email address, so it will be fairly straight forward to keep track of the sheets belonging to each person (see here for more information).

Then to transfer the items back, you can drag the folder into a shared workspace that has the new account/email as an Admin. The new account owner can drag that folder back into their own personal sheets and re-gain ownership under their new account. (See here).

Benjy

Updating this thread with the current best practices :)

If you would like assistance in this process, feel free to reach out to your Smartsheet team or Smartsheet support (with approvals from both the source and destination plan / instances system admins, support is able to move users between Smartsheet instances).

Preparation: Moving users between Smartsheet instances should be done in close coordination between the system administrators on the source and destination instances of the move to reduce downtime for users being moved. Make sure that the destination instance has enough available licenses to accommodate the users you want to move to this instance- if you do not have enough, you can acquire more and/or connect with your Smartsheet team for guidance. If you have premium add-ons like Pivot, Calendar, etc., I also highly recommend consulting with your Smartsheet contact / team to ensure the source and destination instances have the same features to ensure there is no disruption. As long as the destination instance has the same add-on features as the source and with ample quantities, there will be no loss of data in this move. Connectors like the Salesforce or Jira connector will need to be discussed with your Smartsheet team as well- unfortunately, the connector workflows set up by a users that is going to be moved will need to be recreated after the move. If your instance heavily uses group manager, resource manager, Salesforce admin, and other account level settings, it is worthwhile to export the user list from the source plan to then bulk restore these permissions on the destination instance. Finally, groups created by a user moving between instances will stay on the source plan, and there is not currently a way to transfer groups between Smartsheet instances.

Action: Once you have confirmed that the destination plan has the right add-ons and enough licenses, the source instance's system admin should delete users from the source plan that need to be and then move them to plan BUT, they should not reassign the owned items of these in the process, unless these assets should stay on the source plan and not with the user(s) being moved. If the asset ownership is not transferred in this process, when the user(s) being moved are deleted, these owned assets will enter a read only state that lasts 30 days and as soon as the user regains their license in the new instance, all of their assets will be restored into a full active state. All sharing permissions will be retained in this move as well. From here, you can use the bulk update feature to restore the miscellaneous permission levels of the users that have been moved. You can instruct the users that were moved to log out and log back into Smartsheet to recognize the changes and that they can proceed working on their assets (there should be very few noticeable changes outside of branding and maybe some new security controls like SSO).

Again, if you have any questions on this process, feel free to reach out to your Smartsheet team or Smartsheet support.

Genevieve P.

Thanks so much for hopping in and updating this thread, @Benjy!