When collaborating in the cloud, it’s critical to know that important data in your projects – like financials, due dates, and formulas – remain unchanged. With Smartsheet, you can give yourself some peace of mind through securing certain parts of your sheet by adding locks to columns and rows.
How it Works
To break it down for you, in a locked row, an Editor won’t be able to delete, add, or alter any data in any way. The row cannot be moved to another spot in your sheet, even if an editor highlights a row and selects 'Sort Rows'. The row is unsortable, uneditable, and set in stone.
Locks prevent all collaborators, except those with Admin permission to your sheet, from changing data in that row or column.
[Quick reminder: Editors can contribute to the content in your sheets, while Admins have more power to design the look and feel of a sheet in addition to contributing to the content. For more of a refresher on sharing permissions, our Help Center has tons of info.]
How to Lock a Row ![]()
You can lock and unlock a row by:
- Selecting the drop down arrow on the sheet on a specific row
- Choose Lock Row
- Once a row is locked, simply click the lock to unlock it
When to Lock a Row
Wondering when you should think about locking down? Here are some common scenarios we recommend:
- Protecting Formulas - Lock columns that contain formulas to ensure editors won’t overwrite formulas that help craft your sheet. So if a formula sums up statistics and data, the result has no danger of being tampered with.
- Parent Row Protection - Secure a parent row that is a rollup of data or section names that you would like to remain unchanged. This way you don’t have to individually lock all rows of a section of your sheet. Simply roll up the children, and lock the parent row.
- Sample Rows - Create a locked example row so editors have a formatting reference to use when they add data to your sheet. This can be helpful to streamline and set the stage for the expectations you have for your sheet.
Keep your data secure, and share your sheet without fear.
Til next week, dig in and explore!
- The Support Team