Allow Users to Edit Ranges

With Protect Sheet and Protect Workbook, a user can protect a worksheet or workbook so that only a person who knows the correct password can access them. However, what if we want to protect only part of the worksheet? Also, if more than one user is simultaneously working on the document, is it possible to grant them different access rights? Can the system administrator use domain rights for this purpose? Meet the Allow Users to Edit Ranges option.

The Allow Users to Edit Ranges option was created because it is not always enough to protect the password table. Sometimes it is necessary to protect certain parts of it, then grant different users (from purchase, sales, accounting, etc.) permission to update them. Excel, among other things, allows granting access permissions based on domain orders, making work even safer. Using this option will be shown in the list of fixed assets. Imagine that we have a table containing census data, and that we only want to allow workers who belong to the appropriate organizational unit to access certain parts of this table. We will select the range C3: C7 (commercial), and then in the Review ribbon look for the Allow Users to Edit Ranges option. After launching this option, the same dialog box will be displayed.

Clicking New will open the New Range dialog box. In the Title field, the name should be given, e.g. the word “Commercial”. In the Refers to Cells field, specify the address of the range, which in our example is $C$3:$C$7. Finally, the Range Password field should indicate the password the user enters to access this cell range after protection. The dialog box also contains the Permissions button. Clicking this button opens a dialog box whereby we can assign the right access to domain users. In case we opt for this option, we do not need a password, because only the users who have already logged in using their domain username and password will have access rights to the band. After clicking OK, Excel will ask us to confirm the entered password and protect the specified range.

In addition to the New option, the Allow Users to Edit Ranges dialog box also contains the Modify option, which is used to modify the rules for granting permissions, as well as the Delete option used to delete them. By clicking the OK button we confirm that we have finished entering the rules and closing this dialog window. You will notice that there is also a Protect Sheet option on it. This option is used to protect the worksheet directly from the window. Namely, the protection of individual parts of the table becomes active only after we protect the worksheet. In addition to the window dialog, we can also start this option in the usual way, from the Review ribbon.

After we have protected the worksheet, if we try to access (change the value) of the Excel cell, we will not be allowed to do this if we do not enter the password or if we do not have the appropriate access rights.