Excel and Protected View/Read-Only View/Protect Sheets

[sdw50]

Hi there,

I have a rather large workbook which I sell licensed access to. I have a licensee who has purchased access for four users but wants the functionality for additional admin staff to be able to open the workbook for printing purposes in the event licensed users are not available.

I have a userform which prompts the person opening the model to select whether they are one of the four licensed users or not. For the former, the model opens as expected (full read/write access), for the later I need to design/build in vba some restrictions from changing values, but not restrict macro use (for print views, etc).

I have found SettAtr code to open in read-only view, but this event doesn't seem to work properly on-open. I have also read a lot about the protected view in Excel 2010 and I think this might work, but I am not sure how to enable Protected View on open. Finally, I have also considered individually protecting each sheet on open from unlicensed users but this is onerous from a calculation perspective.

I want to know if anyone has had a similar problem in the past, how it was resolved or any top tips in general which I could apply to this situation.

Thanks in advance,
Scott