Hide Rows from Viewers or Report

Steve O'Hara

Hi

I have a project that I have created. I want to share the plan with a client but our template has the financials of the project in it. Obviously I do not want them to see this.

Is there a way that I can hide certain rows from a viewer of my project plan?

Thanks in advance.

Steve

Paul Newcome

As long as you have the required columns, reports can be viewed as a Gantt.

And to add to @Heather D's suggestion on how to provide the report, even on a dashboard, the report widget will only show what the user has access to. So if they sign up as a free collaborator and are not shared to the underlying data, the report will be blank.

My suggestion would be to publish the report and provide that link to them instead.

Heather Duff

Hi @Steve O'Hara ,

Does your client have access to the Smartsheet? If not, here's what I would do:

Create a helper column called Client View (this can be hidden). Make it a checkbox column, and check the rows you do want your client to see.

Then create a report that shows only the columns you want them to see, and filter so that it only shows rows where Client View is checked.

Then create a dashboard with a Report widget on it and share the dashboard with them. That way, they don't have to have access to the underlying report and sheet in order to see the data.

Hope this helps!

Best,

Heather

Steve O'Hara

Hi Heather,

I have a WBS column which would complete a similar action.

My only concern is that the viewer would want to see the GANT layout of the project plan. I don't thing you can have the GANT off a report can you?

Cheers

Steve

Paul Newcome

As long as you have the required columns, reports can be viewed as a Gantt.

And to add to @Heather D's suggestion on how to provide the report, even on a dashboard, the report widget will only show what the user has access to. So if they sign up as a free collaborator and are not shared to the underlying data, the report will be blank.

My suggestion would be to publish the report and provide that link to them instead.

Heather Duff

@Paul Newcome Good thinking! Maybe I'm mistaken, but don't the Advanced Options for the report widget let you choose whether it's restricted to what they have access to, or what the person who made the widget has access to?

I have all of my report widgets set to Widget Editor, and so far they seem to be working. We have board members who don't have access to source sheets, but are able to see the data on the widgets in dashboards shared with them.

I always get nervous about publishing reports/sheets because the data we track is somewhat sensitive. I'm afraid if it's shared to the public, somehow someone will stumble upon that info. It feels more secure to require them to be signed in to view the dash.

Just my two cents - and my preference. 🙃

Steve O'Hara

Brilliant! Thank you both.

Paul Newcome

@Heather D I completely forgot about that feature. Good call.