Autofilter on a protected sheet

Okay, I can find a thousand hits on my title, but none fix my problem.

I have a workgroup created by another group. The worksheet in question is protected, but they've applied an autofilter which I can manually manipulate.
When I record my manual manipulation, I get this:

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However, when I try to run that same macro, I get a run-time error saying I can't use this command on a protected sheet. How do I manipulate the autofilter via a macro in this kind of case?

That's the problem; it's not my sheet. I don't set the protection, I just get to work with the protected sheet.

Depends on what you mean by "can they not do this". As stated, when I get the sheet, an autofilter has been applied, but nothing selected. So when I get it I can click the autofilter on the various columns and choose, for instance, "Jomili" in column I, or "Region 2" in column B. So they HAVE allowed the autofilter, and I CAN select the options I want. I merely want a macro to select those options, and that's where my difficulty lies.

Not really in this case. The group that creates it isn't open to suggestions to allow more access. By allowing the manual filter they figure they're done enough. So I'm not going to be able to do the "userInterfaceOnly" part.

Maybe that's what I'll do; I'll break the password, harvest the data I need, then close it without saving. Yeah, that'll work. Let me try that out and get right back to you.

Care to explain further?

I actually went with what I think is a better way; rather bothering with all the autofiltering and stuff, I can achieve my goals through a VLookup. The problems in this are that the workbook name and location vary, and the column containing my desired data wanders through the sheet. I've achieved a clunky success with the code below; I'd like to find a way to identify the MFR workbook and sheet with a variable and use that in my VLookup formula rather than opening the workbook, saving to my desktop with a standard, then closing it. Any ideas?

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