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As a finance manager, you often send sensitive financial information that must be protected from unauthorized changes or distribution. For example, if you send an Excel 2003 workbook related to proposed mergers and leveraged buyouts to key team members, you might not want the workbook forwarded, changed, copied, or even printed. In Microsoft Office 2003, you can use Information Rights Management (IRM) technology to distribute files and maintain control over the privacy and integrity of the content — even after it leaves your computer.

For example, this sample workbook contains information that for legal and competitive reasons is very sensitive.

Using IRM, you can use permissions in Excel 2003 to help protect the privacy of data like this. You designate who can read, revise, copy, and print the workbooks that you forward in e-mail messages, save to a disk, or post to a shared folder. When you restrict permissions to a workbook, only the people you designate have access to the content.

 Note   You can create Excel workbooks with restricted permission by using IRM only in Excel 2003.

To protect data by using permissions for a workbook

1. Start Excel 2003, and create or open a workbook.
2. On the File menu, point to Permission, and then click Do Not Distribute.

   You can also restrict permission for a workbook by clicking Permission on the Standard toolbar (toolbar: A bar with buttons and options that you use to carry out commands. To display a toolbar, press ALT and then SHIFT+F10.).

3. In the Permission dialog box, select the Restrict permission to this workbook check box.
4. In the Read and Change boxes, type the names or e-mail addresses of people you want to give permission to. You can do this by typing their names or e-mail addresses, or by clicking Read or Change and selecting contacts from your address book.

   You can verify the names by clicking Check names to the right of the Read or Change box. If you want to give all users permission, click Give all users Read access to the right of the Read box, or click Give all users Change access to the right of the Change box.

5. Click OK to save permission settings, and then save your workbook.

After permissions have been set, the Shared Workspace task pane displays the permission status.

Tips

Set other permission options

You can also set other permission options, such as an expiration date for permissions to this workbook, or an e-mail or Web address where users can request additional permissions.

Set an expiration date for the workbook

Let users request additional permissions

Allow users to view content without Microsoft Office 2003

Require users to connect to the Internet to open content with restricted permission

Change a user's access level

View your permissions in Excel

In Excel, users can view the permissions given to them by clicking View my permissions in the Shared Workbook task pane to open the My Permission dialog box.

Rest assured that your workbook content is secure

Now, only the people you've designated can read, revise, or even print the workbook. You can send merger valuations and any other sensitive financial information to key players, and you can be more confident that it won't accidentally reach anyone other than your intended audience.