How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce

In this Salesforce tutorial, we will discuss how we can restrict the access of reports in Salesforce Classic and Salesforce Lightning.

Recently, I received a requirement to have two public groups for 2 different departments. Now, here comes the issue, both groups are able to see or view the reports for each other’s department.

So, to overcome this issue in Salesforce, we need to understand how to restrict reports access in Salesforce. Here is the list of topics that we will discuss:

• Creating public groups in Salesforce Lightning
• Creating public groups in Salesforce Classic
• How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce Lightning
• How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce Classic

Now, before we jump to the steps of restricting access, let us create two groups for two different departments.

Creating public groups in Salesforce

Based on the Salesforce edition we are using the steps to create a public group may vary. For example, let us discuss the steps to create public group in Salesforce Lightning.

Creating public groups in Salesforce Lightning

Here are the basic steps that we can follow to create two public groups in Salesforce Lightning.

Step-1: First, login into your Salesforce lightning account. For this, first, click on the gear icon(⚙️) and then click on the Setup option. This will open the Home Setup page in Salesforce Lightning.

Step-2: Next, under the Quick Find search box search for groups and you will find Public Groups are present under the Users. So, click on the Public Groups option to open it.

Step-3: After clicking on the Public Groups option, the Public Groups Setup page will open. On this page, click on the New button option to create a new Public Group.

Step-4: On the next page, fill in the required information inside the page. First, specify the Label, Group Name, and the required Group Members.

Here in this example, we are filling the label as the SBDC Reports.

Step-5: Once we fill out all the details, click the Save button to create a new Public group in Salesforce Lightning.

Now, we can also follow the same steps to create another Public Group with a name-> CORP Group.

Creating public groups in Salesforce Classic

Here are the necessary steps that we can follow to create two public groups in Salesforce Classic.

1: First, log in to your Salesforce account and open the Setup page. For this, click on the Setup option given in the top-right corner.

2: Next, from the Quick Find search box, search for the Groups option and click on the Public Groups option.

Next, we can follow the same Step-3 to Step-5 as specified for the Salesforce Lightning edition from the above section.

For more details check: How to Create Public Groups in Salesforce

How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce

Before we jump to the next phase, we should know how to create reports in Salesforce. For this, you can refer Joined Reports in Salesforce.

Once we have created the public groups in Salesforce, we can follow these steps to restrict reports access in Salesforce Classic as well as Salesforce Lightning.

Let us first discuss the steps for the Salesforce Lightning Edition.

How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce Lightning

• First, from the Home Setup page, click on the App Launcher icon, search for Reports, and click on the Reports option to open it.

• After this, from the left side menu, click on the All Folders option given under the Folders section. This will open the page where all the folders will be listed.

• On the next page, click on the New Folder option given in the top-right corner of the page.
• Once we click the New Folder button, it will open a window where we need to specify the Folder Label and Folder Unique Name. After this, simply click on the Save button to create a new folder.

In this example, we created a folder with the name “SBDC Reports Folder“.

• After clicking on the Save button, it will create and open the same folder in Salesforce. Here we need to click on the drop-down arrow (⬇️) given next to the New Folder option and then click on the Share option.

• Once we click on the Share option, it will open a Share Folder window. In this window, select the Share With option as “Public Groups” and then under Names search and select the required public group.

In our case, we selected the SBDC Reports Public Group.

• After selecting the Public Group first click on the Share button and then once the group is added under the Who Can Access section, we can also select the type of accessibility for that group. For instance, this access can either be View, Edit, or Manage. In the last, click on the Done button.

• Next, we need to change the Folder for our required report in Salesforce. For this, click on the All Reports option given under the Reports section from the left-side menu.
• From the All Reports page, select the required report and click on the drop-down icon (⬇️) given corresponding to a report name. And then click on the Edit option. This will open the report in the Report Builder tab.

• On the Report Builder tab, again click on the drop-down icon (⬇️) given next to the Save button and click on the Properties option.

• The above step will open a Save Report window for the particular report. Here we need to click on the Select Folder button and then choose the New Folder that we just created in the previous step. After selecting the folder, simply click on the Select Folder option

In our example, this new folder is SBDC Reports Folder which we have selected from Created By Me section.

So, with this, we have successfully restricted the access of a report for a particular public group in Salesforce Lightning. And this public group is representing a department of the United States based organization.

How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce Classic

1: Once we switch to the Salesforce Classic experience, we will land on the Home page.

2: From the Home page, click on the plus icon (➕), and then from the list of tabs, click on the Reports tab. This will open the Reports & Dashboards page.

3: Next, click on the folder icon (📂) given next to the search box under the Folders section. After this click on the New Report Folder option.

4: By this, it will basically open a New Report Folder page where we need to specify the Report Folder Label and Folder Unique Name.

In this example, we specified the Report Folder Label as “CORP Reports Folder” and Folder Unique Name as “CORP_Reports_Folder“.

5: Once we specify the required fields, we simply need to click on the Save button to create a new Report Folder.

6: Next, from the left-side menu, under the Folders section, locate the required new folder and click on the pin icon (📌) given next to it. And then click on the Share option from the list. This will open the Share window related to New Report Folder.

7: In the next window, select the value for Share With option as “Public Reports” and then under Public Groups, select the required group and click on the Share button. This will share the report folder with that particular group.

Once the above step is performed, click on the Done button to close the window.

8: Next, we need to change the directory of the required report from Unfiles Public Reports to the CORP Reports Folder. For this, click on the Unfiled Public Reports directory given under the All Folders section. Then from the list of reports, click on the drop-down icon (⬇️) given next to the report and click on Customize.

9: On the next page, click on the Report Properties option. This will open the Report Properties window. On this window, we need to change the Report Folder from Unfiled Public Reports to CORP Reports Folder. In the last, click on the Save button to save the changes.

So, here we have successfully restricted the access of a report for a particular public group in the Salesforce Classic edition. Here in this example, we have created a public group to represent the department of a US-based company.

Related tutorials to work with reports in Salesforce.

• How to run reports on Salesforce
• How to export report to excel in Salesforce

Conclusion

So, in this Salesforce tutorial, we have understood how to create a public group in Salesforce Classic and Salesforce Lightning. And then we have seen how to restrict the access of a particular report to this specific public group.

Here is the list of topics that we have covered:

• Creating public groups in Salesforce Lightning
• Creating public groups in Salesforce Classic
• How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce Lightning
• How to Restrict Reports Access in Salesforce Classic