Hide Info

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brandon
  • Start date Start date
B

Brandon

We have a "Quote Calculator" that we setup in excel to calculate the cost of
getting some custom products. We want to show the customer the results of
that calculator, but we don't them to see the calculator itself (i.e. the
breakdown of charges). How could we hide and protect the cells that are
showing the calculator? I know how to hide cells, lock them and protect
them. Is that our only option here?
 
Brandon:

A simple solution that might work for you would be to put all of your
calculations on a second sheet (tab) and just have your data entry cells,
your result cell(s) and formatting on the first sheet (tab). Then just
protect and hide the second sheet so that the customer doesn't see it.

Norm
 
Brandon

Excel's security is not the greatest. Sheet and Book protection can be
cracked in seconds.

If you don't want your customers to see data I would suggest you show them a
copy of the sheet(s) without the underlying charges and calculator.


Gord Dibben Excel MVP
 
You might be better off saving the calculator in a different workboo
altogether and just linking your formulas to that workbook, just th
same as linking to another sheet would be. That way you have fewe
steps than hiding sheets and protecting documents, you'll neve
accidentally forget to protect the document, and there's no worrie
about excel's protection being hacked
 
I'm not quite sure how this will provide additional security.

If the OP is going to keep the functionality (still allow calculations to be
made), then both workbooks would have to be distributed and each would be
susceptible to the curious.
 
It has added security because you wouldn't send the workbook that
contains the confidential data. Excel will store the last known
calculated value so that his client will see the numbers that he wants
them to see. Before he sends the workbook to the client, he could also
break the links (Edit --> Links --> Break Links) so that excel won't
try to update the values when the client opens the spreadsheet. Just
don't save after the links are broken or it can be kind of a pain to
re-establish the links.

Another added benefit is that this removes the 'need' to protect the
worksheet that you're sending to a client. Having been a client, it
always drives me nuts when I receive a protected document because I
usually want to play with the numbers and take info from it to use in
proposals to my boss.
 
It sounded to me like they wanted their customer to make changes to play what-if
games. If that's true, then the calculator worksheet would have to be sent,
too. I could be misreading this, though.
 
Back
Top