Take the 2-minute tour ×

I've gotten a weird request today, someone I work with asked if there is any way to track changes to a specific cell in an Excel Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is hosted on SharePoint and they want to track who and what changes are made to one or two cells in that spreadsheet. So they asked me if there is any way to do this in SharePoint or otherwise?

I have no idea if this is possible so maybe you guys know?

Thanks! Tudor

EDIT: I read a bit more online and theres the Track Changes option within Excel, but is this all we have? And does that show which cell was changed by who?

share|improve this question
add comment

1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Unless you build a Macro (which by the way are not recomanded particularly for spreadsheets hosted in SharePoint) the Track Changes should allow you access to all data.

Q: Why not considering importing the Excel into a custom list, which would give you more possibilities, such as:

  1. No-code (via SPD Workflow) to use "Wait for a change" in target fields and send notifications
  2. Code based via Event Handlers which programatically give you all access via ItemUpdating
share|improve this answer
Business logic in the spreadsheet might prevent it, but a good alternative. –  PirateEric Aug 11 '12 at 13:46
Thanks! I showed them the Track Changes option within Excel and they seem happy with it for now. From the look of the spreadsheet, they would not like using a list for this but thank you for the help! –  Tudor Aug 13 '12 at 23:13
add comment

Your Answer


