Excel locked cells with different permissions for different user groups

Question

We're using Microsoft Teams and sharepoint to collaborate on excel files and we need to selectively lock certain cells in our spreadsheets.  We need one level of access that allows a small group to edit everything and we can individually assign these permissions to the specific people.  The next level is we need to have specific columns editable by an entire Teams/Sharepoint group.  Then finally have the entire document locked but viewable to everyone else in our organization.

I'm unable to figure out how to assign "Allow Edit Ranges" permissions to a sharepoint group or individual sharepoint users.  Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

Hi Patrick,

Welcome to the Answers community.

We understand you want to give edit permission on specific cells to certain users and I suppose you want to use Allow edit range option, as show below.

If you use this method to lock certain cells, the individuals accessing the workbook online (in SharePoint or Teams) will not be able to edit the workbook, all the cells will be locked even the cells which are allowed for editing.

Based on your requirement, to lock specific cells, I tried the method mentioned in the following article and then shared the workbook, when opening the workbook in browser, I was able to edit the unlocked cells, when I tried to edit the locked ones, I received the following message.

Lock or unlock specific areas of a protected worksheet

I’ll suggest you please try the method from the article, check if this works for you.

Regards,

Neha

Answer 2

I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but that article says to use the "Allow Users to Edit Ranges" settings, that's the guide I used in the first place.  We already have files that are mostly locked but have editable cells for everyone, that works fine.  Now I need to have different levels of editable ranges for different groups of people.

Answer 3

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for replying.

To give specific users permission to edit ranges in a protected worksheet your computer must be in a domain. To give permission, you must enter the names of specific users.

May I know where exactly, at which step you are stuck? This will help us understand your scenario.

Regards,

Neha

Answer 4

I'm able to set up the highest level permissions with full edit access since I can find those users in the "Enter the object names to select" box, but I can't find the sharepoint groups to set up the limited range edit permissions.

Answer 5

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for the information.

We understand you would like to add SharePoint Groups in the "Enter the object names to select" box.

The SharePoint groups are specific to SharePoint sites, whereas in "Enter the object names to select" box, we can enter the user’s name those are added to the domain. As SharePoint group are not added to domain, we can’t enter SharePoint group name directly to give permission. In this scenario, we have to enter individual names.

If you need any other help related to this topic, please don’t hesitate to post back.

With sincerest regards,

Neha