hello friends,

Version:
Excel 2007
OS: Windows 7 Professional

Situation:

I have a 1000 rows X 50 columns of data. Filters are applied on the required columns. I have locked the cells and gave permission to about 10 different users to edit different columns and i have the master password to unlock the sheet. I protected the sheet with permissions- to format, insert rows, hyperlink access, sort, autofilter and, edit objects and scenarios- checked.
I want to filter out rows when one particular cell in corresponding row turns zero. I dont want to run macros to filter, as there are 10 users editing over 1000x50 cells. So I manually filter these out.

Problem:

Sometimes the filter option gets disabled automatically. I could see the Filter Arrow there but when I mouse-over to filter header cells, the pointer turns to hand tool icon and I wont be able to dropdown or select those cells. And when I checked at that time all the formatting options and other permissions are removed.

To fix this issue, I have to remove sharing, unprotect the sheet and re-protect it. While re- protecting, all the permissions that i have checked would be mysteriously disappeared. That means it is not only the filtering option that gets disabled, but all the other permissions viz. format cells, insert rows, hyperlink, sort, edit objects, etc.

Does it have anything to do with users saving the workbook with different filtering?
Any suggestion would be of great help. Thank you.