With so many information stored inside a single Salesforce org, security measures must be undertaken to ensure that these data are safe from prying eyes of unauthorized people. Because of this, field-level security is enforced in Salesforce. This post will tackle what field-level security is, and how it works to safeguard essential company data.
Field-Level Security Defined
Field-level security is a setting that lets Salesforce admins define user restrictions as to who can access specific org data. The setting lets the admin control which user profiles can view, edit, and save information on specific fields.
Where Can Field-Level Security be Applied?
Salesforce data is not always available for everyone on the org. Certain information must be kept private, depending on the users who need it for their workflows. Hence, enforcing field-level security is a great way to control access to vast amounts of org data.
The following data’s access can be controlled through field-level security:
- Salesforce Customer Portal
- Partner Portals
- Edit and Detail Pages
- Reports
- Related lists
- Customized links
- List views
- Connect Offline
- Synchronized and imported data
- Emails
- Templates for mail merging
Considerations for Using Field-level Security
Keep these considerations in mind when using field-level security settings.
- Detail pages contain fields that have combined field-level security settings and page layout settings. Page layouts may influence the fields that certain users update inside the Salesforce User Interface. However, the more restrictive option overrides the two security settings. Fields needed for a page layout remains a read-only field if it is set to a read-only field-level security setting.
- Admins may verify user access after setting up field-level security. He does so by checking the field’s accessibility settings.
- Values in restricted fields are still searchable. Search results will return associated records without these protected fields.
- Permissions for field level security include two types: Read Access and Edit Access. Fields can either have none or both of these user permissions. If a user is granted access to the fields, he is able to edit the data inside the fields. Likewise, if he is restricted, he cannot view nor edit the data fields.