Sharing Rule Explained
Sharing rules are the primary mechanism for opening access when OWD is set to Private or Public Read Only. They come in two types: ownership-based sharing rules (share records owned by members of one group with another group) and criteria-based sharing rules (share records that match specific field values, regardless of owner). Access can be granted as Read Only or Read/Write. Target groups can be roles, roles and subordinates, public groups, territories, or queues.
Sharing rules are evaluated asynchronously and update the sharing table, an internal Salesforce table that tracks which users can access which records. In orgs with millions of records and complex sharing configurations, the sharing table can grow very large, which impacts performance on record access checks. Salesforce recommends keeping sharing rules under the per-object limit (typically 300 owner-based and 50 criteria-based per object for most editions). Clientell AI can visualize your sharing model, identify redundant rules, and optimize your configuration for performance.
Related Salesforce Terms
Organization-Wide Defaults (OWD)
Organization-Wide Defaults define the baseline record access level for each object, establishing the most restrictive sharing setting before other mechanisms open access.
Role Hierarchy
The Role Hierarchy in Salesforce controls record-level visibility by granting users access to records owned by anyone below them in the hierarchy tree.
Field-Level Security (FLS)
Field-Level Security controls which users can see and edit specific fields on Salesforce objects, enforced at the profile and permission set level.
Profile
A Profile in Salesforce defines the baseline set of permissions, page layout assignments, and system settings that apply to every user assigned to it.