New User Model and Publish Users

kwsmartsheet · 02/24/25

I opened a support case asking about this on February 13, but have received no response at all, so hopefully the community is more responsive.

We have a few paid users, but for most sheets, we use the publish functionality (with a public link) for people to view/edit. Is that feature going away or will it still work the same as before?

I'm mainly wondering if we'll now have to pay for each of those publish users, or if they will still be free.

The documentation that I could find isn't really clear about publish users (since they don't actually need to have a Smartsheet account).

Thanks in advance for your help!

kwsmartsheet · 03/06/25

@Vivien Chong It took three weeks, but Smartsheet support finally responded. Here's the response from the support person:

"With regards to the question about if you use the publish functionality to allow anyone with the link to view/edit sheets, would it give them a license.

In testing on my side, this is not the case. As long as you publish with "anyone can with link can access" with editing permissions, this will not give them a license or count towards one."

So, it sounds like publish users with anyone with a link can access should not count (though I'm guessing you're right about publishing for those in your Smartsheet plan). I responded to suggest that they update the documentation to reflect the answers given by support since I'd also like to have official documentation to point to, but at least this is something.

Genevieve P. · 03/07/25

Hi all,

Jumping in to verify what Support said above:

In the User Subscription Model, Membership is determined by core asset permissions. Permissions dictate what actions a user can and can’t take on an asset, so any action that requires permission triggers provisional Membership.

Users looking at a published item that is set to allow access to "anyone with a link" do not require direct sheet sharing access, therefore it will not trigger provisional Membership.

Cheers,
Genevieve

Andrée Starå · 02/24/25

https://community.smartsheet.com/discussion/136552/new-user-model-and-publish-users

Hi,

I hope you're well and safe!

Internal users who only need to view will still be free. External users who need to view/edit will still be free.

Make sense?

More info.

https://help.smartsheet.com/articles/2483341-system-admin-guide-migration-user-subscription-model

I hope that helps!

Be safe, and have a fantastic day!

Best,

Andrée Starå | Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

✅ Did my comment(s) help/answer your question or solve your problem? Please support the Community and me by marking it - Insightful 💡- Vote Up ⬆️ - Awesome ❤️ - or/and as the accepted answer. It will make it easier for others to find a solution or help to answer! I appreciate it, thanks!

kwsmartsheet · 02/24/25

No, that really doesn't answer my question…

We use the Publish feature to share a link to a sheet to be edited by anyone. Technically, the users we share it with are "internal" in that they are part of our organization and have email addresses in our organization.

However, because they join as Publish users, they don't have their own Smartsheet account (they don't have to login). So, maybe in that sense they are "external"?

This just goes to show my point that the documentation doesn't seem to address Publish Users at all.

My question is whether people who can currently edit/view published sheets shared with anyone (who don't have Smartsheet accounts at all but edit/view as a Publish User) will be required to have Smartsheet accounts after this change and then be billed as internal users (since they have email addresses on our domain).

Darren Mullen · 02/25/25

@kwsmartsheet Since they would be viewing a published link without being logged in, then there's no way for Smartsheet to track who the user is. So, publishing a link shouldn't cause any issues with your subscription.

kwsmartsheet · 02/25/25

@Darren Mullen That's what I was hoping would be the case and it's also what would make the most sense to me.

But, the fact that Smartsheet doesn't seem to explicitly address it and hasn't responded to my support case makes me kind of concerned there's something I'm missing. Did you find any specific documentation where Smartsheet addresses this?

If not, I guess I'll just have to infer since they haven't mentioned it and the article on Publish Users still seems the same as always that they don't intend the new user model to have any effect on Publish Users and that Publish Users won't be going away because of the new user model. But it wouldn't take them very long just to clear that up directly, so there's no confusion instead of people having to guess.

Darren Mullen · 02/25/25

@kwsmartsheet No, I dont' have any documentation.

Vivien Chong · 02/27/25

@kwsmartsheet I would like to find out more about this as well.

I believe if we just publish with editing permission to "anyone with the link", then Smartsheet shouldn't be charging for it as they will not be able to track the user who is editing the sheet.

However, if we publish with editing permission to "users in my Smartsheet plan" for better access control, then users will be required to login before update. According to the USM definition, a member is an internal team who are shared to the sheet with commenting permission and above. So, it may require membership.

Hope to have more official information on this matter.

kwsmartsheet · 03/06/25

@Vivien Chong It took three weeks, but Smartsheet support finally responded. Here's the response from the support person:

"With regards to the question about if you use the publish functionality to allow anyone with the link to view/edit sheets, would it give them a license.

In testing on my side, this is not the case. As long as you publish with "anyone can with link can access" with editing permissions, this will not give them a license or count towards one."

So, it sounds like publish users with anyone with a link can access should not count (though I'm guessing you're right about publishing for those in your Smartsheet plan). I responded to suggest that they update the documentation to reflect the answers given by support since I'd also like to have official documentation to point to, but at least this is something.

Genevieve P. · 03/07/25

Hi all,

Jumping in to verify what Support said above:

In the User Subscription Model, Membership is determined by core asset permissions. Permissions dictate what actions a user can and can’t take on an asset, so any action that requires permission triggers provisional Membership.

Users looking at a published item that is set to allow access to "anyone with a link" do not require direct sheet sharing access, therefore it will not trigger provisional Membership.

Cheers,
Genevieve

kwsmartsheet · 03/07/25

Thanks @Genevieve P.! I'll mark you as the accepted answer, since you're an official Smartsheet employee. My support person responded again this morning to say that he'd recommend an update to the FAQ page to mention this, but if that's something you can do too, that would be great!

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