can anybody tell me what is the icon with the name of other people that appear left of the UNDO arrow? (that green T in the image). If i pass the mouse over it I see their name and email
is there any way to turn it off?
ok, thats the user presence stuff added in September, thatâs why I didn´t know about it âReal-time user presence When multiple people work in the same Grist document, changes appear in real time. Youâll also see who else has the document open, shown as icons in the toolbar:â https://support.getgrist.com/sharing/#real-time-user-presence
I hate it. I don´t want the users of my document to even SEE the email of others. And it caused a panic when they started noticing it today, thinking others were seeing their data
Hey @Rogerio_Penna !
Thanks for your feedback. The user presence icons are only visible to users who already have access to the document and can see each otherâs emails under âManage Usersâ / âAccess Detailsâ. The feature doesnât expose any new information beyond whatâs already available there.
There is not currently a way to turn it off but I will share your feedback with the team so we can discuss ways to improve the feature.
Thanks,
Natalie
For self-hosted instances of Grist, you can turn this feature off by setting the environment variable GRIST_ENABLE_USER_PRESENCE to false.
1 Like
Yes, but I also didn´t realize (until a little before your post) that they could see each other emails on the share menu. If possible, an option to HIDE emails (including in the sharing) from non owners would be really welcome. And make it more clear the icons and names are other users using the same document.
my specific use case
The âPrĂŞmio da Qualidade ContĂĄbil do SESCON-RSâ is an award program created by SESCON-RS (the Union of Accounting Service Companies of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) to recognize accounting firms that demonstrate excellence in management and service quality.
What it is, in simple terms
It is a quality award for accounting companies in Rio Grande do Sul that evaluates how well these firms structure and manage their internal processes, customer service, leadership practices, innovation, compliance, and continuous improvement.
The award aims to:
-
Promote quality and professional excellence in the accounting sector
-
Encourage firms to adopt best management practices
-
Strengthen the image and credibility of accounting companies
-
Support continuous improvement and organizational development
-
Highlight firms that are examples of quality and good governance
How it works
Participating firms go through an evaluation process that typically involves: (this is where Grist comes into play)
-
A structured self-assessment based on quality management principles
-
Submission of documentation and evidence
-
Possible external evaluation by trained assessors
What this means is that there are competing companies using the same document to insert their data. Some companies may not like the emails they are using (whoever is being responsible for inserting the data) may not like very much other companies may get their emails.
I know you created the feature based on the thinking of COLLABORATION⌠but in this case, itâs a competition, not a collaboration lol
This use case makes your concern very clear. User Presence is already restricted from Viewers; but Editors are considered active collaborators. In your case, do you rely heavily on Access Rules to ensure your participating users donât see too much, and can only edit their own data? In other words, for you, Editors are very limited users.
Thinking of the right way to address this, are you thinking of something like a sharing option (or perhaps an access rules option) like âAllow Editors to see all collaboratorsâ?
This is essentially what changed recently: the answer used to be ânoâ, but changed when we launched comments. Comments are mainly useful to have a conversation and notify your collaborators, so itâs important for collaborators to be able to mention one another. Normally 
Yes, something like this. And I would probably use the same option to hide the SHARING menu also from editors. Editors have no business sharing the document with others. Thatâs up to owners. So no reason for editors to access the sharing menu, see the list of people and emails.
Yes, thatâs what I meant too. Editors already CANNOT share the document with others, thatâs what sets Owners apart. But as of recently, Editors can mention each other in comments, which means they can learn about collaborators, so it made sense for the Sharing menu to show collaborators too (for editors itâs read-only). This checkbox would basically treat Editors as Viewers for this purpose: they wouldnât see collaborators in the Sharing menu, or be able to mention them in comments.
FWIW: weâve had lots of users wanting the option to turn this feature off on a per-document basis even though itâs on at the instance level.