Prevent users from deleting rows

Julie Morrison

Hi is there any way to prevent users from deleting rows in our sheet? We need them to collaborate with the sheet but NOT delete. Unfortunately despite telling our users to not delete the odd few still do and it impacts our numbering system

Paul Newcome

You could give them viewer only access to the sheet then provide them with a report. Reports can be edited, but rows cannot be deleted from them.

Andrée Starå

Hi @Julie Morrison

Unfortunately, no, not really, but it's an excellent idea!

Please submit an Enhancement Request when you have a moment

As a possible workaround, you could either (depending on the access the users have) lock the row(s), or use the premium add-on, Dynamic View.

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post(s) help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Genevieve P.

Just a quick note!

@Paul Newcome's suggestion is a good one, but they would also need to have Editor permissions on the underlying sheet still, in order to make any edits through a Report. (See this article on Report sharing permissions.)

Paul Newcome

You could give them viewer only access to the sheet then provide them with a report. Reports can be edited, but rows cannot be deleted from them.

Andrée Starå

Hi @Julie Morrison

Unfortunately, no, not really, but it's an excellent idea!

Please submit an Enhancement Request when you have a moment

As a possible workaround, you could either (depending on the access the users have) lock the row(s), or use the premium add-on, Dynamic View.

Would that work/help?

I hope that helps!

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅Did my post(s) help or answer your question or solve your problem? Please help the Community by marking it as the accepted answer/helpful. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer!

Genevieve P.

Just a quick note!

@Paul Newcome's suggestion is a good one, but they would also need to have Editor permissions on the underlying sheet still, in order to make any edits through a Report. (See this article on Report sharing permissions.)

Paul Newcome

Ugh. Thanks for the correction @Genevieve P.

Julie Morrison

Thanks for the responses, I've raised an enhancement request as per suggestion. In meantime we hope our colleagues will avoid the delete button :)

Andrée Starå

@Julie Morrison

Excellent!

Happy to help!

Brad Jones

@Julie Morrison

Please see Community post https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/37871/deleted-rows

By all means submit an Enhancement Request - but as this fix does not generate revenue expect Smartsheet to continue to ignore it. 6 years and counting.

Paul Newcome

@Brad Jones Yes. Some of the posts you have linked to are relevant to preventing users from deleting rows while still being able to edit the data within the rows, but some of the threads you have linked are outdated and have been addressed by Smartsheet. One example would be the thread you have linked regarding users not having access to a sheet but still being able to fill out a form. Definitely possible now.

A few other things to take into consideration...

Posting about it here in the Community does not guarantee that the Smartsheet team will see it. Yes it is monitored by Smartsheet employees, but there are only so many of them to try to keep up with moderating the entire Community. That's what the Product Enhancement Requests are for. Just because someone complained about it here doesn't necessarily mean that they submitted an enhancement request.

Let's say that every one of them did actually submit an enhancement request. That's an average of maybe 7ish per year with a 2 year gap where none were submitted until this thread (just looking at the dates in your links real quick to provide an example). Compared to the number of Smartsheet users, that's really not a very large request for this feature. Yes. It has been around for a while, but with relatively low activity surrounding the issue, why would Smartsheet make it a priority?

Another thing to keep in mind is that we don't know what kind of programming it would take to implement this feature. It could be that it would require an absolutely absurd amount of resources that either Smartsheet doesn't have the bandwidth for or can't justify the cost of.

Brad Jones

@Paul Newcome

Do you think that it is 'good design' that on a 100column sheet with 99 locked columns any user with edit rights can delete any & every unlocked row on the sheet? (especially in the light of basic .csv style backups of heavily content/feature-rich sheets and workspaces)

If you, or your QA department, disagree with mine and many other user's assertions that easily lost data is indeed a real problem - so be it.

My objective in continuously posting about this issue remains: to continue to push Smartsheet to improve their product by introducing what I and many others feel is a critical and overdue feature. The squeaky wheel eventually gets the grease. And yes, I have submitted numerous enhancement requests specifically about this.

What then is your objective? You pointed out a smattering of errors in my list, and gave a few reasons why it might be overlooked for nearly a decade, all without without even offering an opinion on the root cause of the original post.

Paul Newcome

@Brad Jones I never said it was a "good design". I never said it wasn't a "real problem".

You mention that I pointed out some errors in your list (simply letting you know that some of your points were outdated and/or inaccurate so that you may better formula your argument) and gave a few reasons why something may be overlooked (basic logic regardless of whether or not I agree with the "reason"). You also mentioned that I did not offer an opinion on the root cause of the original post. In all reality... My opinion on the root cause doesn't matter because I have no definitive proof to back anything up. At this point it would be purely speculation (as is your opinion on the "root cause").

Here is a link to the new Product Enhancement Request area in case you wanted to save yourself some time by not having to continue to spam old threads in order to keep your opinions relevant...

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/92094/faqs-and-guidelines-for-posting-product-feedback-ideas

Brad Jones

This is already something that I have submitted several times over the past 7 years.

With any luck, they will consider it.

A Rose

Just an idea here,

This is not the preferred way I would've built Smartsheet but you can make it work,

1. You can hide ALL columns on the sheet except for one blank one that can also be locked,
2. Create a report with relevant columns, filters, sorts, and permissions, (remember to give at least the same level of permission on the sheet)
3. On alerts, you can remove columns and instead of a sheet link with columns, send it as a message and include columns as references (Example, Name: {{Name}} ).
4. You can also create a director's report to show all rows without filters of assigned rows.

• With this approach, they probably won't delete rows as there's no way to see what row it is (only in the comment section it has the primary column name),

• However if you can tag them on the report, the link will take them to the blank sheet,
• For this you can not use the tag feature, instead, add the automated column "Latest comment", and create an alert to the rep on the sheet with the trigger for any change to the "Latest comment" column,
• Also, include the primary column in the alert as a reference so agents can find them easily.
• If you filter the report to only show current user rows for the agent on the row - that will help them find more easily the row they were tagged on.
• (Using the built-in comment as a trigger for an alert with a message only - won't work for more than one trigger at the same time as there's no reference for the built-in comment section and the alert will show without the actual comment).