Time saving tips: Back to the future…wait, I mean Classic, to discover the power of the ‘Sharing’ button

I love Lightning, I really do, but for today’s post we’re heading back to Classic to take a look at the ‘Sharing’ button on the account page.

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Sadly the ‘Sharing’ button hasn’t made it to Lightning yet – be sure to check out the useful links section below and click on the link to up vote this feature!!

The problem

Let me count the ways a user can gain access to an account record…actually let’s not, we could be here all day.

If you work in an org that utilises the full extent of Salesforce’s immense sharing model, then it’s likely that one day a user will have access to a record and you will have no idea why.

I’ve been here before. I thought I had exhausted all the usual suspects: role hierarchy, sharing rules, opportunity teams, but I still couldn’t work out why a certain user could access an account.

The solution

Enter the ‘Sharing’ button.

This lovely button appears on the account record page in the Classic interface. So if you’re in Lightning, switch back to Classic, just for a minute.

First, let’s navigate to an account record and check if the button is present. It should look like this:

If the button is not on the page, follow these steps:

Go to Setup

Go to Build > Customize > Accounts > Page Layouts

Click Edit next to your page layout

On the page layout editor, select Buttons and drag and drop the Sharing button into the Standard Buttons section, then save

Still in Setup, navigate to Administer > Security Controls > Sharing Settings
Check the Account object is set to Private or Public Read Only

Navigate back to your account record – the button should now be visible!

If you still cannot see the ‘Sharing’ button, please review the gotchas & hints section below.

The result

Clicking the ‘Sharing’ button will display a list showing all users with account access and the reason why.

I frequently find the reason a user has access I hadn’t anticipated, is because they have access to a related record or are on a related record team. For example, if a user is added to the Opportunity Team, by default they will have access to the account related to that opportunity!

Gotchas & hints

*You can access the Sharing button when the object sharing setting is Private or Public Read Only.

*You may see the Sharing button when the account object is set to Public Read/Write if the sharing settings for related opportunities is Public Read Only.

*When the Sharing button is available, Administrators will always see it. Other users will only see the button on records they own.

*A user can appear more than once if a record is shared with them for multiple reasons: check out Lynda Herman in the example above!