Why doesn't my report work for an unlicensed user?

Becky Swanwick

I am a licensed user and have set up a report that pulls in date and budget info from various projects. When my colleague, who is an unlicensed user, tries to access it, she can't see all the rows that I can see and therefore only sees partial information, which is not very helpful.

When I asked her to share her screen with me and show me what was appearing in report builder at her end, I could see that there were fewer sheets in scope for her than for me, as well as a column heading not being found. Why would this be the case when everything is correct on mine? Surely the report should update according to how I update it, and we should all have access to the same info regardless of licence status?

Further to this, when she went in to try and make any changes to report builder to correct these errors, she wasn't able to because of the unlicensed user pop-up.

Genevieve P.

Hi @Becky Swanwick

This doesn't actually have to do with licenses, but rather the sharing permissions this user has on the underlying sheets.

Reports provide a window into the underlying sheets, so if the user looking at the Report is not shared in any way to the underlying sheets then they will not be able to see the data from the sheets they have no access to.

Ex. I create and own 2 sheets: Sheet 1 and Sheet 2. I then share Sheet 1 with Jim and Sheet 2 with Mark. Then I create a Report using both Sheet 1 & 2 in the same view, and share this Report to both Jim and Mark.

• When I look at the Report I can see both sheets, since I have permissions on both sheets.
• When Jim looks at the Report he can only see data from Sheet 1.
• When Mark looks at the Report, he can only see data from Sheet 2.

Make sure that your colleague has at least Viewer permissions on all of the underlying sheets, so that she can view the full Report as you do. You can read more about Reports and sharing in our Help Center (see here).

If you want to provide a view of the Report without sharing the underlying sheets, you could publish the Report instead (see here).

In regards to your second point, you are correct, a license is required to create and manage reports. The report Owner and Admins can edit the report criteria in the Report Builder.

Let me know if sharing her to the underlying sheets has resolved your issue!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Becky Swanwick

Hi Genevieve,

Thanks for your reply. She can see all the underlying sheets already, so that's not an issue here. Do you have any other thoughts on what might be causing this?

Thanks,

Becky

Genevieve P.

Hi Becky,

Is it possible that you are both looking at two different Reports with the same name?

If she has sharing permissions on the underlying sheets then they should appear for her in the report. That additional column should also appear, even if she can't see the sheet it's associated with, which is what's leading me to believe it could be a different report.

Could you check the Properties (File > Properties) and make sure that the Report ID is the same?

If it is, I would suggest reaching out to Smartsheet Support so you can provide them will full screen captures of what you see, what she sees, her email address, and the sheet names associated with the report. This way they can troubleshoot with you one-on-one and can review sensitive information that perhaps shouldn't be posted publicly in the Community.

I hope that helps!

Cheers,

Genevieve

Becky Swanwick

Hi Genevieve,

No, we're very definitely both looking at the same report. Thanks, we'll get in touch with Smartsheet Support.

Thanks,

Becky

LeeAnn Friemoth

I have the same issue!!! GRRRR It's frustrating. @Becky Swanwick - did Support resolve this for you? How did they go about doing so?

Berto D

I'm having the same issue, too. No idea what to do.