Protected Excel Workbook SharePoint issue

Question

My company is trying to utilize SharePoint to support our quoting process. We use a password protected Excel workbook with various tabs - some with sensitive confidential information. The entire workbook as well as some specific worksheets are password protected. Not all of the tabs are readily available for everyone to view. We have found with our initial trial of adding the Excel File to SharePoint that when you convert from SharePoint Excel to using the desktop app the password protected workbook is no longer protected and anyone can go in hide / unhide any of the tabs in the Excel Document. Unfortunately, this cannot happen for our process. Is there a way to work around this issue? Any input is greatly appreciated

Answer 1

David,

I would like to be part of the correspondence of your issue as we would have the same issue and it is problematic... Any way you can send me the link to your post on the other forum so that I can follow along?

Thanks in advance,

Erin

Answer 2

Hi MS team, we are also experiencing the same issue in our organisation where up to 100 people are interacting with a sensitive spreadsheet where it's essential they can only add content to a single unprotected column on multiple Workbooks. The dropping of Protection for Excel online puts the integrity of the sheet at risk

1. The Library setting change makes the users open the sheet in the client app but can they still circumvent this by right clicking and opening as online excel anyway? They appears to be our experience so is there a setting we are missing?
2. Are Microsoft working on a patch to fix the Excel online issue please and if yes what would the expected timelines be?

Thanks

David

Answer 3

Hi Cliff,

Thanks so much for your speedy response! We are using both the protect a worksheet and protect a workbook feature in Excel Desktop Client.

First we open in Excel Desktop client and then normally we would unlock the workbook, but it is already done for us without inputting any passwords which is the primary problem.

I am not the administrator - but will talk to one in my office and see if the "Open in Client application" helps us with our issue.

Thanks,

Erin

Answer 4

Not all of the tabs are readily available for everyone to view

you can go to Library Settings > Advanced Settings > Check "Open in the client

this way can protect whole workbook instead of several tabs/worksheets in one workbook.

so,to split a workbook to many files and then upload these workbooks to sharepoint may work.

Answer 5

Dear Erin,

Welcome to the forum here.

Regarding "We have found with our initial trial of adding the Excel File to SharePoint that when you convert from SharePoint Excel to using the desktop app the password protected workbook is no longer protected and anyone can go in hide / unhide any of the tabs in the Excel Document.", may I know whether you are using the Protect a worksheet feature and the Protect a workbook feature in the Excel desktop client?

If yes, may I know whether you first unlock the sheet or the workbook and then open the Excel files in the Excel desktop client? If yes, the issue may happen.

Given the situation, you may force the users to open the files in SharePoint in the Excel desktop clients first time. If you are the administrator, you can go to Library Settings > Advanced Settings > Check "Open in the client application" as a workaround.

Thanks for your effort and time.

Cliff