Owner-based versus criteria-based sharing rules
Key Takeaway
An owner-based sharing rule picks records by who owns them. A criteria-based sharing rule picks records by field values, no matter who owns them, so use one to share records owned by high-volume community or site users, who have no roles and can't be in public groups.
Sharing rules give certain groups of users more access to records than the org-wide defaults allow. The two rule types differ in how they choose which records to share. An owner-based rule looks at the record owner. A criteria-based rule looks at the record's field values instead. The type you choose decides which records a rule can reach and what you can change after you save it.
What a sharing rule does
Sharing rules make automatic exceptions to org-wide defaults for users in public groups, roles, or territories. Like the role hierarchy, a sharing rule can only grant more access. A sharing rule can never make access stricter than the org-wide default.
You can create sharing rules only when the object's org-wide default is Public Read Only or Private. You also need the "Manage Sharing" permission.
Every sharing rule sets three things:
- Which records to share
- Which users get access
- What level of access they get
The rule type, either "Based on record owner" or "Based on criteria", decides how the rule picks the records. Both types use the same "Share with" and access level settings.
Sharing rules work best for groups you can predict in advance, such as everyone in a recruiting role. When the right users change record by record, such as the interviewers for each candidate, use another method, such as sharing each record manually.