Creating a Sharing Rule is one of the standard cross-team-access configurations a Salesforce admin handles regularly. The configuration is straightforward, but the testing and validation matter more than the click path because incorrect sharing leads to either security gaps or usability complaints.
- Open Setup and navigate to Sharing Settings
Setup > Security > Sharing Settings. The page shows Organization-Wide Defaults at the top and Sharing Rules grouped by object below.
- Pick the object and click New
Scroll to the object whose Sharing Rule you want to create (Account, Opportunity, Case, custom object). Click New under the appropriate sharing rule section.
- Choose owner-based or criteria-based
Owner-based rules are faster to evaluate and easier to maintain; criteria-based rules cover access patterns that ownership cannot describe. Pick the type that matches the requirement.
- Configure the source and target
For owner-based rules, pick the source group (whose records get shared) and the target group (who gets access). For criteria-based rules, define the criteria (Industry = X, Region = Y, custom field = Z) and pick the target group.
- Set the access level
Read Only or Read/Write. Read Only suffices for most visibility-only rules; Read/Write is needed when the target team also needs to edit records.
- Save and wait for recalculation
Click Save. The platform queues a recalculation; on small orgs this completes in seconds, on large orgs it can take hours. Monitor through the Setup audit log.
- Test with representative users
After recalculation completes, log in as a target-group user (or use Login As) and confirm they see the records they should and do not see records they should not.
- Sharing Rules grant access only; they cannot restrict access granted elsewhere. If OWD is Public Read/Write, Sharing Rules do nothing.
- Criteria-based sharing rules cap at 100 per object. Plan your access model so the most common patterns use owner-based rules.
- Recalculation is asynchronous and can run for hours on large datasets. Plan rule changes for off-hours.
- Apex Managed Sharing is needed for access patterns declarative rules cannot model. Document the logic explicitly so future admins can debug sharing complaints.
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