If I want to share my sheet with a non subscriber as an “Editor” it says that Editor can comment and not make sheet changes. If I want that person to download a document and/or upload to a specific cell in a column, can the non/subscribor Editor, do that?
Welcome @Joe_Yobaccio.
Yes. Editors can add comments, add file attachments in Attachment cells, as well as download attachments in cells.
Editors are free users in Spreadsheet.com. They must be registered users but they are not Licensed Users (i.e. if you have a workspace on a paid plan, you do not pay for users with Editor, Commenter, or Viewer permissions).
More details here: https://support.spreadsheet.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029869711-Quick-Start-Sharing
An editor cannot. be required to be a registered user for many reasons. The idea of our business having our own system is not the burden or responsibility of anyone outside our organization. If we have a task sheet set up internally with a need for more info, be it a doc to be edited or info that we need, we would need to send that out to anyone and it has to be quick and simple for them to view what we send and reply without registering. So, is there any permission level that will allow someone to download a doc we send to them and they can then upload documents and any other attachments we need from them or make any notes themselves into our task?
Hi @Joe_Yobaccio, currently Spreadsheet.com does not allow anonymous editing and there is no short term plan to enable this capability. We do have a longer term plan to allow the creation of update forms that would allow non-users to make changes to specific rows/columns of data, but this is not currently on our short term roadmap.
Regarding downloading/uploading docs, this can be done via an Attachment cell in worksheets but as above, does require users to have a registered account.
Hope this helps clarify what is possible in Spreadsheet.com today.
Hi Matt,
I did not ask if anyone could edit.annonomously or make changes to a sheet.
What I asked, is a very common business practice of having non team members, ie, contractors, outside parties, etc, be able to add comments or receive a document atrached to my sheet, dowload it, then reupload. If I wrote a.contract and want you to proof it, I might send you a row with the attachment. You download the doc, edit and reupload and make a comment to me to call you tomorrow at 3pm. Or, how I have used Smarsheet,I want 3 people to sign a doc. I share that doc with a sheet and that is the only doc. Otherwise,I have 3 emails coming in with 3 versions of the same doc. None of those people are on my internal team, so there is no reason for them to join spreadsheet.com. it is simply to manage that documnt.
As an alternative, can I exchange emails that include the attachment, but the emails are connected to that sheet or row via a subject line or other rule? So, then, I have only the sheet to reference.
@Joe_Yobaccio - We are scheduled to work on two features.
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Contacts - They are people with an email address ( name , phone #, photo etc optionally) who can be assigned Tasks in a Sheet. They are not spreadsheet.com users, but they can be notified via Automations of changes to the their assigned Tasks(rows).
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Row-Update link - An editable Row-link ( a custom form with row-data ) can be sent to the email of the Row owner ( who could be a contact ) so that they can update the Row with status, new attachments etc. Or add a comment to the Row.
I’m assuming that these two together should work for your use-case.
You veered off my example and used your own. 1. Contacts with emails ph #s and and photos: No, they cannot be required to provide any of that as a condition to receive a row from me. You seem to be saying they have to register, but not subscribe. 100%, we will not ever ask our vendors or outside contractors to register to be able to commnt or receive attachements or upload attachments.
- Row Data Link
You say a custom form needs to be created? Sounds like an extra step and time consuming. But, you also did not answer my question. You only said they could comment and upload new docs. You did not answer on them downloading a doc, then editing the doc and uploading the doc again after they edited it.
This should be the exact same as email, but witj your sheet. A commentor should get the link and open upon receipt and download any attachments and reply back with an attachment. They key difference is that I do not have to sift through several emails, as the latest version of the doc stays linked or attatched to the sheet.
Sounds like the answer is “no” for now to your main question. Compare this to how you would use Google Sheets might help. For example, you can share a link to a Google Sheet document with somebody via email, and the only way that they can edit the document without a Google Account is to edit it as an “anonymous user” - and I believe that spreadsheet.com uses a similar type of definition for “anonymous user”. However, in spreadsheet.com, an “anonymous user” cannot comment or edit, only view (correct me if I’m wrong)
Murali has described another method which they are working on. He also mentioned that name/phone/photo are optional (so only an email would be needed for a Contact). This wouldn’t be the same as the process mentioned above (emailing a link to your spreadsheet), but if you figure out how to make it work, it might actually be better in the sense of allowing a Contact to only edit the row that has been assigned to them. Still, it’s not the same as just setting the Share setting on your spreadsheet to “Anyone with a Link” in order to allow everybody, even anonymous users, to edit the document.
Murali, would it be possible to define Contacts at the spreadsheet level such that you could allow non-registered users to submit rows via the Form View? … Actually I think I can see the problem … How can you know that a person is who they are supposed to be (identified by their email) unless they have an account and log in with that email? So in your “2. Row-Update link” example, how could you ensure that the row is being updated by the person whose email was listed as the Contact? If they forwarded their notification email to a million people, would that mean anyone with that link would be able to edit their row?
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Yes - like Matt mentioned in a recent post, -anonymous editing and commenting- is not an immediate priority for us.
Talking of Contacts, Contacts are probably a workspace level list - Think of them as Contacts of your team or company that you work with to get stuff done- Vendors, Contractors, Recruiters or Freelancers that you work with or CRM-Leads, even job applicants that you are moving through a recruitment pipeline.
- They do not register with spreadsheet.com -
- You get their contact details from your pre-existing records (phone/planner/import-from-gmail/ERP database) or through form submissions from your website.
When you Send a Row-Update link to a contact’s email address to update,
- You are sure that either that person or someone they forwarded it to updates the form
- I can imagine the form links having a TTL or max-updates limits.
“If they forwarded their notification email to a million people, would that mean anyone with that link would be able to edit their row?”
haha - yes probably - unless they come with max-updates limits or are use-once only.
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