Publish a sheet, report, or dashboard

Publishing a sheet, report, or dashboard generates a unique URL that anyone can access without logging into Smartsheet and an iframe code that you can embed within a website’s source code to display the sheet or report.

Items you publish are dynamic, so the data displayed is always up to date. 

You can unpublish at any time. When you do this, the published sheet, report, or dashboard version becomes inaccessible.

Using this feature can potentially expose sensitive data outside of your company. To share a link in a more limited way, use the Access Control (see below) or copy and share the link that’s available in the sheet properties, report properties, or dashboard properties window. The link from the properties window is secure and only accessible to shared collaborators.

Find publishing permissions in  Security Controls in the Admin Center. Owners and Admins can publish a sheet, report, or dashboard. System Admins on Business and Enterprise plans can limit or deactivate publishing for all users on the account. Learn more about global account settings. 

When publishing a Smartsheet item, you can use the Security Controls to limit access to the item. Go to Menu > Settings > Security Controls > Sheet Publishing.

• Published sheets are available to anyone with the link
  • Creates a link that allows anyone with access to it to view or edit the content on your link.
• Published sheets are available to users on the same Smartsheet plan
  • Creates a secure link that requires the user to log in to Smartsheet before viewing your link’s content. Only internal users you added to your Smartsheet plan can view the content.

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For more information, see Admin Center overview.

 This access control applies only to the published link. Direct collaborators on the item or workspace, including those outside your organization, can access it using their own login settings. For more information, see Sharing.

Your Smartsheet plan includes users listed as active users in your System Admin’s Admin Center. For more information, see User management.

Save your item before publishing it; the last saved view is the published one. 

Publish a sheet

You must be in grid, Gantt, card, or calendar view to publish a sheet. 

1. Select Publish   from the right feature bar.
    
2. Select the slider under one or more of the publish options and set it to ON. 
   
   Setting the slider to ON creates a link to the sheet and opens a window where you can further customize the published experience. 
   
   The different options for publishing a sheet are:
    
   • Read Only - HTML: Best option if you want a lightweight, quick-loading view of your sheet data. It provides a simple, read-only view of the sheet data, without the option to switch to Calendar or Gantt View. Attachments and comments aren’t available, and you can’t collapse or expand indented rows.
   • Read Only - Full: This option offers a richer user interface than Read Only - HTML, enabling viewers to open row attachments and comments and to collapse or expand hierarchies.
     
     Use the Security Controls options to control whether the link is accessible to anyone or only to selected users who are shared with the item.
     
     Use the Publish Settings options to set the default view to Grid (Gantt) or Calendar.
   • Edit by Anyone: This option allows anyone to open the sheet and make changes as if they had Editor-level sharing permissions.
     
     Use the Security Controls options to control whether the link is accessible by anyone or only internal users on your Smartsheet plan.
     
     Use the Publish Settings options to set the default view to Grid (Gantt), Card, or Calendar. Visitors to the published sheet can switch between views as they like.
   • iCal (Calendar): This option lets users add dates from the sheet to their non-Smartsheet calendar. 

Publish a report

Use publish to display a report in a view-only format that allows viewers to open row attachments and comments, highlight changes, and print the report.

To publish a report:

1. Select Publish   from the right feature bar.
2. Select the slider to turn to publish ON. The Read Only - Full - Publish Links window appears.

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3. Choose the attributes that you want:
   • Use the Security Controls options to control whether the link is accessible by anyone or internal users on your Smartsheet plan.
   • Use the Publish Settings options to set the default view to Grid (Gantt), Calendar, or Card View. 

The published report displays the same results that the publisher sees in Smartsheet. If the publisher’s sharing access is removed from the report, publishing is turned off and the report owner is notified.

Publish a dashboard

The Publish option displays a dashboard in a read-only format. Viewers of the published dashboard can use shortcuts and any configured widget interactions.

To publish a dashboard:

1. On the top menu, select File > Publish.
2. Select the slider to turn publishing ON.

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3. Use the Security Controls options to control whether the link is accessible by anyone or internal users on your Smartsheet plan.

A published dashboard automatically refreshes once every 10 minutes. You can’t customize or deactivate this behavior.

A published dashboard can become unpublished if the user who originally published it loses access to the dashboard. This happens when:

• The publisher is removed from the workspace containing the dashboard
• The publisher is removed from a group that was shared to the workspace
• The publisher's sharing access to the dashboard is otherwise revoked

When any of the scenarios above happen, the published link stops working, but this change is not recorded in the Activity Log until someone attempts to access the published link. At that point, the unpublishing event is logged against whoever attempted to access the link.

To avoid an unexpected loss of access for your audience, consider republishing the dashboard under a user with stable or long-term access to the dashboard or workspace.

Share your published item or embed code

Once publishing is turned on, copy the URL or embed code from the window and paste it into the email message or web page where you want to share it.

Stop publish or edit publish options

1. For sheets and reports, select Publish   on the right feature bar. For dashboards, select File > Publish.
2. Do either of the following:
   • To turn off publishing and to discontinue access to the sheet from the published links or iframe code, select the slider under each enabled publish option to set it to OFF.
   • To make a change, select Get Link next to the publish option you want to change.