Hidden Columns in jqGrid

This feature is built into jqGrid.

setup your grid function as follows.

$('#myGrid').jqGrid({
   ...
   colNames: ['Manager', 'Name', 'HiddenSalary'],
   colModel: [               
               { name: 'Manager', editable: true },
               { name: 'Price', editable: true },
               { name: 'HiddenSalary', hidden: true , editable: true, 
                  editrules: {edithidden:true} 
               }
             ],
   ...
};

There are other editrules that can be applied but this basic setup would hide the manager’s salary in the grid view but would allow editing when the edit form was displayed.