Who can change workspace sharing permissions ?

David Dolch

This article https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/522067-workspace-sharing?_ga=2.241258762.985620779.1605216901-1389174172.1605216859 states that the only people who can change workspace sharing permissions are the Owner and Admins.

I just had a user with "Edit - Can Share" permissions delete most of my shared users from a workspace.

This user was looking at a sheet that he was working with. He was sharing it out to others on his project team when he noticed there were a lot of "other" users who were shared to it as well (the people shared to the workspace) so he deleted them from that sheets share - which in turn deleted them from the workspace. I got panicked messages from most of the project managers assigned to that workspace saying they could no longer access their projects.

I thought the only people who could delete people from a workspace were the Owner (me) and the Admins (one other person).

Jaykel Torres

Hey David,

Thanks for posting your question and I'm sorry to hear that happened. I did review the Help Article and did find that it was lacking details on "Editor - can share" Sharing Permission Level. Allow me to elaborate on what this Sharing Permission (Editor - can share) can do:

• If they are Shared to the Workspace, they can Share the Workspace with an equivalent Sharing Permission or lower (Editor - cannot share or Viewer). They also have the ability to Share the Smartsheet Items at the "individual" item level with an equivalent Sharing Permission or lower.
  • It is important to note they have the ability to remove Users at the Workspace or Sheet Level with an equivalent Sharing Permission or lower.
• If they are Shared only at the Individual Item Level (Dashboard, Sheet, Report), they can Share Users to the Item with an equivalent Sharing Permission or Lower.
  • While they do have the ability to remove Users at the Individual Item Level with an equivalent Sharing Permission or Lower, they can not remove any User at the Workspace Level.

As our Help Article does not explicitly mention the above, I will submit a request for this to be reviewed and changed. We appreciate your input!

To ensure Users Shared to a Workspace are not removing other Users from it, you may want to consider only Sharing them to the Items within it only; opposed to Sharing them to the Workspace. I would also consider removing their Sharing ability all together by setting them as "Editor cannot Share".

I recommend reviewing our Help Article: Sharing Permission Levels for details and instructions on this topic.

I hope this helps!

Jaykel

Jaykel Torres

Hey David,

Thanks for posting your question and I'm sorry to hear that happened. I did review the Help Article and did find that it was lacking details on "Editor - can share" Sharing Permission Level. Allow me to elaborate on what this Sharing Permission (Editor - can share) can do:

• If they are Shared to the Workspace, they can Share the Workspace with an equivalent Sharing Permission or lower (Editor - cannot share or Viewer). They also have the ability to Share the Smartsheet Items at the "individual" item level with an equivalent Sharing Permission or lower.
  • It is important to note they have the ability to remove Users at the Workspace or Sheet Level with an equivalent Sharing Permission or lower.
• If they are Shared only at the Individual Item Level (Dashboard, Sheet, Report), they can Share Users to the Item with an equivalent Sharing Permission or Lower.
  • While they do have the ability to remove Users at the Individual Item Level with an equivalent Sharing Permission or Lower, they can not remove any User at the Workspace Level.

As our Help Article does not explicitly mention the above, I will submit a request for this to be reviewed and changed. We appreciate your input!

To ensure Users Shared to a Workspace are not removing other Users from it, you may want to consider only Sharing them to the Items within it only; opposed to Sharing them to the Workspace. I would also consider removing their Sharing ability all together by setting them as "Editor cannot Share".

I recommend reviewing our Help Article: Sharing Permission Levels for details and instructions on this topic.

I hope this helps!

Jaykel

David Dolch

Thank you for the reply - that explains it. Unfortunately your solutions will not really work.

Each team has a workspace (a separate project under a Control Center instance) that all of that teams projects reside in, in separate folders. There is also a separate folder in that workspace that contains team level roll up reporting.

All team members need access to the roll up reporting. They also need Edit - Can Share to their individual project artifacts, because as Project Managers they need the ability to share those items with their Cross Functional Teams as necessary (the whole collaboration part of SmartSheet). A single project folder contains approximately 20 different artifacts created by Control Center. I would have to manually reassign permissions to all in-flight projects - 30 projects with 20+ sheets/reports/dashboards each, as well as maintain those permissions when personnel change.

Folder level permissions would be a solution. (that has been asked for). Or for ability to "lock" workspace level changes to certain levels (Such as Admin / Owners)

For now I will have to issue an training email that further iterates to my 35 or so users not to touch Workspace level permissions.

Thanks