**Please note that only a System Administrator has the level of access required to set up Sharing Rules.
A Sharing Rule is one of the methods used to extend record access beyond the Organization-Wide Defaults (OWD). Sharing Rules can be either based on record ownership or based on certain criteria.
Example Use Cases
- The Contact object’s OWD is set to Private, but you want to share Team A’s Contacts with all of the users in Team A.
- The Contact Group object’s OWD is set to Private, but you want to have all Contact Groups owned by the System Administrator visible to all users.
- The Property object’s OWD is set to Public Read Only, but you want all Properties in a certain county to be Public Read/Write so that all users can make updates to those Properties.
Rule Types
- Based on record owner - This allows you to share all records owned by users in one Public Group with all users in the same or in a different Public Group.
- Based on criteria - This allows you to share all records that meet certain criteria (based on fields on the records) with all users in a Public Group.
How to Set Up Sharing Rules
- Click the gear in the top right-hand corner of the screen and select “Setup”.
- In the “Quick Find” box, type “sharing” and then click “Sharing Settings”.
- From the picklist, select the object you wish to add a Sharing Rule to.
- Scroll down to the “Sharing Rules” section and click the “New” button.
- Fill in the Label, Rule Name, and Description.
- Choose the Rule Type.
- Determine the records that will be shared (depending on whether the Rule Type you selected).
- Select the Public Group of users that will get access to those records.
- Select the access level that those users will get:
- Read Only - The users in the Public Group you are granting access to will have the ability to view, but not edit, the shared records.
- Read/Write - The users in the Public Group you are granting access to will have the ability to view and edit the shared records.
- Click the “Save” button.
Here’s an illustration of steps 5 through 10:
