How to hide certain columns for a user?
On a shared Google spreadsheet:
I don't want a specific user in my domain to view columns with sensitive data, but this person should still be able to edit the rest of the spreadsheet.
I tried creating a 'master' spreadsheet and using importrange to bring the data into a 'shared' sheet, but once I edit any cell in the shared spreadsheet, importrange no longer works as the sheet is emptied out.
Is there a quick way to do this, maybe using scripting?
Answer
After some research and trying various different options, I was finally able to achieve what I want using the importrange function.
At first, I tried using a combination of hide columns & protect range, but this wouldn't work because a simple copy & paste would reveal the contents of the hidden columns.
Solution: The 'master' spreadsheet does not have any sensitive column data and can be shared with everyone in the organization... I then ADD the sensitive data to a new spreadsheet and use importrange to grab contents from the 'master'. (Previously I had the roles reversed, but this didn't work)
You may want to add unique keys per row entry so that sorting etc won't mess things up when you zip-up the sensitive data and the 'master' data.