FYI: How to prevent Editors from Sorting on a column on your Smartsheet

Rich Stowell

How to prevent Editors from Sorting your Smartsheet: Simply lock any row. Note: this only affects users with Editor (either type), Commentator, and Viewer permissions. Users with Admin permission will still be able to Sort a column.

Discussion: A while back I asked the question, how do I prevent users (particularly editors) from sorting a Smartsheet. The answer was correct in stating there was no method to to do this via some flag. However, I stumbled across a single line in the online documentation that stated that sorts cannot function when a locked row is present. I tested this today with a user who had editor permission only to a sheet. This solved part of that problem(editor, Commentator, Viewer); the rest (admins) is up training and whether Smartsheet will every change who can perform sorts (Improvement recommendation sent)

Liz Smart

This is helpful & agree - this would be a very useful recommendation, thank you! But one question, did you mean a locked column will prevent sorting or does it have to be a row?

Thanks, Liz

GGSF

Column is already locked and is numbered sequentially by dated and time. Don't want people to sort as it will mess up the timeline.