Publish vs Sharing

Desire

I don't fully understand the difference between publish and sharing. Why and when would I publish vs sharing?

Paul Newcome

When you publish a sheet, you can publish it as a number of options including read only-rich and read only-html. Anyone that has the published link can access that version of the sheet.

Sharing allows you to have more options for access (commenter/viewer/etc.) that publishing does not, and sharing is also more secure. Even if I have the sheet's URL, if I am not shared to it, I cannot access it in any way.

Desire

Thanks Paul,

But why would there be "Publish" if it is basically the same as "Share" but not as secure as "Share"? Why would one use Publish then?

I'm asking as we want to publish/share dashboards but we all have different views and opinions and I would like to suggest the correct method of distributing a dashboard for viewing purposes only.

Thanks again for your help!

Christian G.

You don't need an account to see a publish version of the sheet.

You could publish a sheet and send it to anybody. Even me!

You can only share to someone with an account linked to your smartsheet.

Paul Newcome

Their account doesn't necessarily need to be linked to your Smartsheet account. They just have to have an account to log in to view Shared.

Really the only benefit to Publishing is if you need to provide visibility to users that do not have an account. Maybe a very large or public group. Or maybe you have some higher ups that want to see the data but are set in their ways and don't want to have to log in to see it.

Christian G.

I use it to allow public display of a projet Gantt Diagram. Like a TV in the break room.