Report Folders and Sharing in Salesforce is a fundamental concept for Platform Administrators managing data and analytics access across an organization. Report folders serve as organizational containers that store reports and control who can access them.
Salesforce provides several folder types fo…Report Folders and Sharing in Salesforce is a fundamental concept for Platform Administrators managing data and analytics access across an organization. Report folders serve as organizational containers that store reports and control who can access them.
Salesforce provides several folder types for reports. Personal folders are private to individual users, while public folders can be shared with groups, roles, or the entire organization. The folder structure allows administrators to organize reports logically by department, function, or any other business criteria.
Folder sharing operates through a hierarchical permission model with three access levels: Viewer, Editor, and Manager. Viewers can only run reports within the folder. Editors can run reports and save modifications to existing reports. Managers have full control, including the ability to rename folders, delete reports, and modify sharing settings.
Administrators can share folders with various entities including public groups, roles, roles and subordinates, and individual users. This flexibility enables precise control over report visibility. For example, a sales report folder might be shared with the Sales Manager role and all subordinates, ensuring the entire sales team has appropriate access.
Best practices for folder management include creating a clear naming convention, establishing a logical folder hierarchy, and regularly auditing folder permissions. Administrators should leverage role hierarchy sharing when possible to reduce maintenance overhead.
The Enhanced Folder Sharing feature, which is now standard, provides more granular control compared to legacy folder sharing. It allows administrators to set different permission levels for different user groups on the same folder.
Understanding report folders and sharing is essential for maintaining data security while ensuring users can access the analytics they need. Proper folder management helps organizations maintain compliance requirements and prevents unauthorized access to sensitive business intelligence data.
Report Folders and Sharing in Salesforce
Why Report Folders and Sharing is Important
Report Folders and Sharing is a critical topic for Salesforce Administrators because it determines who can access, view, edit, and manage reports within an organization. Proper folder management ensures data security, compliance, and efficient collaboration among team members. On the Salesforce Administrator exam, this topic tests your understanding of how to control report visibility and maintain organizational data governance.
What are Report Folders?
Report Folders are containers that organize and store reports in Salesforce. They serve two primary purposes:
1. Organization: Group related reports together for easy navigation 2. Security: Control access to reports through folder-level permissions
There are several types of report folders:
Private Folders: Only visible to the folder owner. Other users cannot see or access reports stored here.
Public Folders: Available to all users in the organization, though access levels may vary based on permissions.
Shared Folders: Folders shared with specific users, roles, or groups with defined access levels.
How Report Folder Sharing Works
Salesforce uses Enhanced Folder Sharing to provide granular control over report access. There are three access levels:
1. Viewer: Users can view reports in the folder but cannot edit, move, or delete them.
2. Editor: Users can view and save reports to the folder. They can also move reports they own but cannot delete reports owned by others or change folder sharing settings.
3. Manager: Users have full control including viewing, editing, deleting reports, and modifying folder sharing settings.
Key Concepts to Understand:
- Folder access does not override object-level or field-level security. Users still need appropriate permissions to see the underlying data.
- The Manage Public Reports permission allows users to create, edit, and delete reports in public folders.
- The Create and Customize Reports permission is required for users to build new reports.
- Subfolders inherit sharing settings from parent folders by default, but this can be modified.
- Reports in private folders can be shared by moving them to shared or public folders.
Sharing Report Folders
To share a report folder:
1. Navigate to the Reports tab 2. Locate the folder you want to share 3. Click the dropdown arrow next to the folder name 4. Select Share 5. Add users, roles, public groups, or territories 6. Assign the appropriate access level (Viewer, Editor, or Manager) 7. Save your changes
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Report Folders and Sharing
Tip 1: Remember the three access levels and their specific capabilities. Viewer is read-only, Editor allows saving and limited management, Manager has full control.
Tip 2: Understand that folder access and data access are separate. A user might have access to a folder but still not see certain data due to object or field-level security restrictions.
Tip 3: Know which permissions are required for report-related tasks. Manage Public Reports is for managing public folder content, while Create and Customize Reports is for building reports.
Tip 4: When exam questions mention users needing to share reports with their team, think about folder sharing rather than individual report sharing.
Tip 5: Pay attention to scenario details about whether users need to edit reports, manage folder access, or simply view reports. This determines which access level is appropriate.
Tip 6: Private folders are truly private. If a question asks how to make a report available to others, the answer involves moving it to a shared or public folder, or sharing the folder itself.
Tip 7: For questions about restricting access, remember that Enhanced Folder Sharing allows you to specify exactly which users, roles, or groups can access folders rather than making everything public.
Tip 8: Subfolders and inheritance are important concepts. Understand that child folders can inherit parent folder permissions but can also have unique sharing settings applied.