Public Group
A Salesforce group consisting of individual users, roles, roles and subordinates, or other groups, used in sharing rules, folder access, email distribution, and queue membership to manage collective access and notifications.
Definition
A Salesforce group consisting of individual users, roles, roles and subordinates, or other groups, used in sharing rules, folder access, email distribution, and queue membership to manage collective access and notifications.
In plain English
“A Public Group in Salesforce is a group consisting of individual users, roles, roles and subordinates, or other groups. You use public groups in sharing rules, folder access, email distribution, and queue membership to manage collective access and notifications.”
Worked example
The admin at Tarragon Spice Co. creates a Public Group called EMEA Sales Team containing all users in the role hierarchy under VP Sales EMEA plus a few specific overseas reps. Sharing rules use the Public Group to grant access to EMEA-tagged Opportunities; an email distribution list uses the same group; a queue's membership is tied to it. When a new EMEA hire joins, the admin assigns them the appropriate role, and they automatically inherit the EMEA Sales Team's group access - sharing, distribution, queue, all at once. Without Public Groups, each sharing rule and each queue would have to maintain its own list of users individually.
Why Public Group matters
A Public Group in Salesforce is a group consisting of individual users, roles, roles and subordinates, or other groups, used in sharing rules, folder access, email distribution, and queue membership to manage collective access and notifications. Public groups let admins reference a named collection of users in many places, rather than configuring individual permissions repeatedly. When the group membership changes, all places that reference the group automatically reflect the change.
Public groups are foundational to scalable access management. Without them, admins would have to configure sharing rules, folder access, and queue membership for individual users, creating maintenance nightmares when people change roles. With public groups, access configurations reference the group, and changing group membership updates access everywhere. Mature orgs use public groups thoughtfully with clear naming and documented purpose.
How to set up Public Group
Public Groups are flexible collections of Users — used as targets in Sharing Rules, members of Queues, list-view sharing, and dozens of other places. Anywhere Salesforce asks "who?", a Public Group is usually a valid answer.
- Open Setup → Public Groups
Setup gear → Quick Find: Public Groups → Public Groups.
- Click New Group
Top-right of the list.
- Set Label and Group Name
Convention: descriptive of the population — "Sales Managers," "East Region SDRs," "VIP Account Owners."
- Decide on Grant Access Using Hierarchies
Default: ticked. When ticked, sharing rules using this group propagate access UP the role hierarchy. Untick if you want strict access without role-based escalation.
- Add Members
From the Selected Members panel, add Users / Roles / Roles + Subordinates / Customer Portal Users / Partner Users / other Public Groups. Mix-and-match freely.
- Save
The group is now usable in Sharing Rules, Queue membership, list-view sharing, etc.
Mix of Users, Roles, Roles + Subordinates, Customer Portal Users, Partner Users, other Public Groups.
When ticked, sharing-rule access propagates up the role hierarchy. Most groups leave this on.
If many members, the Search panel filters before Add. Useful for orgs with thousands of users.
- Nesting Public Groups inside other Public Groups is allowed but evaluated at runtime — deeply nested structures can slow down sharing recalculation. Keep nesting shallow.
- Deleting a Public Group fails if it's referenced anywhere — by Sharing Rules, Queue membership, or list view sharing. The error message tells you what's referencing it; clean up references first.
- "Grant Access Using Hierarchies" is irrelevant for objects whose Org-Wide Default is already Public. Toggle it for Private OWDs only.
How organizations use Public Group
Uses public groups for regional sales teams, with group membership driving sharing rules and queue access.
Maintains public groups with clear naming conventions and documented purposes for easy admin reference.
Changes group membership as roles evolve, with access automatically updating across all references.
Trust & references
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Public Group.
- Public and Personal GroupsSalesforce Help
- Create and Edit Public GroupsSalesforce Help
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is a Public Group?
Q2. Where can public groups be referenced?
Q3. Why use public groups?
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