Not so long ago I was asked by a user for help with her file. She wanted people to be able to sort and filter but not do ANYTHING else with it. Of course I went to try my usual things of setting up protection
Review – Protect Sheet – tick Sort, tick Autofilter.
Much to my surprise, that didn’t work. So after some rapid fire googling and some playing around, I eventually came up with this…
- Highlight the area you want users to be able to sort and filter
- Make sure the Filter is turned on (Data – Filter)
- From Review – Allow users to Edit Ranges
- Don’t use a password at this point (otherwise your users will have to use a password even to sort and filter)
- Click New
- The range you have selected should appear in the dialog box. You can give it a name at this point if you wish or just accept the default.
- Click OK.
- Then click Apply and OK
Whew, once you have done all that, you still have to apply sheet protection.
- Go to Review – Protect Sheet
- Choose what you want people to be able to do i.e. tick the Sort box and the Autofilter box.
- Make sure the Select Locked Cells and Select Unlocked Cells are NOT ticked.
- Enter your password
- You will then be prompted to re-enter it.
Note that for sorting you will have to use the Data – Sort dialog box to sort the data. The filter should already be turned on and users without the password should be able to sort and filter but NOT change anything.
Now your users should be able to sort and filter (but not do anything else) . As always your questions and comments are most welcome.
Excel Products for Sale
Here are products from some of my favourite Excel authors and bloggers. Please note these are affiliate links so I do earn a small commission from every sale.
MrExcel.com
Mr. Excel (aka Bill Jelen) is one of the Excel gurus. I love his stuff. He also has a slightly bonkers delivery (What! Excel! Fun!) that I thoroughly enjoy. And of course anyone who calls his Excel publishing book company Holy Macro! gets my vote.
MyExcelOnline.com
Xtreme Pivot Tables course
This is a very comprehensive course on pivot tables. It includes videos and workbooks. There are over 200 hours of videos on it and it takes you from having no knowledge of pivot tables to being a power user. If you know everything in this course, you know an awful lot about pivot tables. John explains the concepts in bite size chunks so they are easy to follow and even provides a tutorial spreadsheet so you can track your progress. This would be money well spent. If you would like to become the go-to person in your organisation for pivot tables, this would be an excellent starting point.
He also has a useful Pivot Table webinar…
This is also a useful chart helper.
Debra Dalgleish – Contextures.com
Master 30 Excel functions in 30 days –This is a rather brilliant e-book which covers 30 functions including Vlookup,Match, offset. It includes an Excel file, e-book and links to videos that shows you how to do it – all for the princely sum of $10. What I particularly like about it are her descriptions, explanations and what the limitation of each function is. Highly recommended. If you want to upgrade your Excel skills this is a very worthwhile investment.
Excel UserForms for Data Entry
The Excel UserForms for Data Entry ebook kit will take you through the steps to build a UserForm that stores data on a hidden worksheet. No programming skills are required — everything is explained in simple steps, with written instructions, screen shots, videos and workbooks.
PivotPowerPremiumRibbon
The PivotPower Premium add-in saves you time and effort, when working with Excel pivot tables. For example, you can quickly:
-save and apply default pivot table settings
-clear old items from an Excel pivot table
-change all the data fields from the Count function to the Sum function
Chandoo.org
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