Step 1
Upload your Excel file or connect your
Google Sheet
Step 2
Share any part of your file
and assign tasks
Step 3
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Password Protect an Excel File
Go beyond passwords.
Control access to your Excel file down to the cell level. Make sure your collaborators only see what they should.
Why do you Need to Password Protect Your Excel File?
Data protection is on the rise and has become a concern to most online users.
If using an Excel workbook or file is part of your daily routine, you will most likely be interested in learning how to protect your entire file instead of a single sheet.
Depending on the sensitivity and confidentiality of the data you work with, you could save much more than only your time and effort.
Is adding a Password the Right way to Ensure the Protection of Your Excel File?
By protecting your Excel file, you control who can see and/or edit its’ contents.
It is a simple solution if you have a simple problem to solve. However, once the user accesses the file, they can either see or edit everything.
What you should be trying to achieve is controlling what precisely each user can see or edit in your Excel file.
In Excel, you can’t achieve this, unfortunately. At least not at the user level. You’d need to create individual carve-outs of your Excel file, protect it, lock/unlock the cells you’d want that file recipient to be able to access and send it over to them via email or internal chat.
Moreover, if you’d like to prevent users from seeing specific sheets or cell-range content, you’d need to play around with hiding/unhiding rows and columns - this is painful!
At Layer, we've developed a new way to collaborate in Excel.
You can select parts of your Excel file down to the cell level and decide which collaborators should have access to it.
Collaborators will then receive an email granting access to the Layer online spreadsheet editor and a downloadable Excel file containing only the cells you’ve decided to share with them.
They can edit the cells’ content directly in the Layer online editor or reply to this email with the updated .xlsx file if you need their input.
Say goodbye to exposed sensitive data and people editing the wrong data in your Excel files.
There’s so much more to Layer. Please keep reading and explore what we have in store for you!
Keep Excel. Keep Google Sheets.
Add Layer to reduce errors, easily communicate, collaborate,
and seamlessly share data or request input within seconds.
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Protect Your Excel Files Like Never Before
Layer is a web app That Works on top of Your Existing Excel Files and Google Sheets.
Share parts of your spreadsheet, collect and consolidate data, and review changes to make collaboration seamless and more efficient while keeping full control over your data.
Manage Access
Work across filetypes and manage the access to your spreadsheets down to the cell level.
Grant Access Down to the Cell Level
Work Across Excel, GSheets or Layer Sheets
Add or Remove Co-Owners and Collaborators
Lock and Unlock Cells
Option to Require Sign In
Track and Review
Define, assign & monitor tasks. Keep discussions, actionable feedback, or context all in one place.
Highlighting and Color Coding
Revist and Revert Previous File Versions
Review, Accept or Reject Changes
Collaborate and Communicate
Spot changes quickly. Accept or reject them, keep previous file versions and restore them if needed.
Smart Chat
Contextual Activity History
Set Deadlines
Define and Assign Tasks
Track Task Progress
Success Stories
Leading companies worldwide use Layer to help them save time
on collaborative processes using spreadsheets.
Elliot Comite
Finance Lead
Using Layer as a core platform for sharing data and collaboration helped make our reporting workflows 10x faster. We get some of the same processes done in a tenth of the time.
Charlotte Kelly
FP&A Manager
Personally, Layer reduced my stress levels quite a lot. Overall, it improved the data collation aspect and significantly reduced the manual errors as a result of copying and pasting data between different spreadsheets.
Elliot Comite
Finance Lead
Using Layer as a core platform for sharing data and collaboration helped make our reporting workflows 10x faster. We get some of the same processes done in a tenth of the time.
Lasse Berens
Senior Finance & Controlling Manager
Layer saves us much time each month by partially automating the reporting process of portfolio companies. The companies appreciate the modern and intuitive design of Layer.
Charlotte Kelly
FP&A Manager
Personally, Layer reduced my stress levels quite a lot. Overall, it improved the data collation aspect and significantly reduced the manual errors as a result of copying and pasting data between different spreadsheets.
Cristian Stollberg
Director of Finance
We used to spend too much time requesting data inputs from different team members. With Layer, we can easily set up and schedule communication workflows for planning with clear deadlines and automated reminders.
Pierina Jiménez
Finance Controller Manager
Layer saves us the hassle of chasing people for data input and manually copying and pasting the data between different spreadsheets by streamlining the workflows and merging contributions, all in one place.
Benedikt Manigold
CFO
Running our data collection on Layer, enables traceable, secure collaboration across teams - it has pushed quantitative analysis to a new level.
Frederic Röper
Head of Finance
Layer changed collaboration projects in Excel from a dreadful, error-prone task into projects, which run themselves and thereby leaves more time for indulging in data analysis.
Doris Heilig
Accounts Receivable & Reporting
Layer saves our team time by easily splitting large amounts of spreadsheet data, sending them to their respective owners for input, and reassembling them in one place—all clearly and comprehensively.
Upload your Excel file or connect your
Share any part of your file
Collaborate, review
Finally you can Control the Access to Your Spreadsheets!
Everything your team needs to streamline your communication flows and collaborate more efficiently on Excel and Google Sheets.