Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect Certification: 2026 Exam Guide

The Short Answer

The Salesforce Certified Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect exam (Plat-Arch-205) has 60 scored multiple-choice questions plus up to 5 unscored, a 120-minute time limit, a 58% passing score, a US$400 registration fee (US$200 to retake) and no prerequisite. Its questions align to the Winter '23 release (checked in October 2026 against the official Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect exam guide and the Trailhead credential page).

It's one of the four certifications that together grant Application Architect. More than a third of the exam is one section, Access to Records (39%), followed by Permissions to Standard Objects, Custom Objects, and Fields (27%). Expect scenarios that describe who needs to see what, and answers that turn on which sharing tool grants exactly that access and no more.

Exam Details at a Glance

Source: the exam guide for every row, checked in October 2026.

58% of 60 is 35 correct answers, so you can miss 25. That sounds generous until you see the questions: most describe an org with several personas and constraints, and two or three answers would technically grant access. The right one grants the access with the least privilege and the least recalculation cost. 120 minutes for up to 65 questions is about 1.8 minutes each, which is more breathing room than most Salesforce exams give you, and you'll use it on the long scenarios. For fees and retake rules across every Salesforce exam, see Salesforce certification cost and retake fees.

Who the Exam Is For

The exam guide describes a candidate with 2 to 3 years of Salesforce experience and 4 to 5 years implementing complex security models in Salesforce, plus an understanding of the security methods and data policies that sensitive data needs. Typical roles are Advanced Administrator, Technical/Solution Architect and Advanced Business Analyst.

The guide expects you to work without help on sharing rules (criteria-based and ownership-based), object relationships and their effect on sharing, org-wide defaults, license types, the role hierarchy, profiles and permission sets, Apex sharing, "run in context" tools that expose aggregate data, testing a security model, teams, territories, sharing sets, files, reports and dashboards, big objects, large data volumes and external users.

It's just as clear about what you aren't expected to know: complex role hierarchy design, measuring or predicting LDV impacts on security design, documenting legal requirements for sensitive data, and org merge security design. It also lists areas where a candidate would likely need help, such as implementing programmatic sharing and determining security requirements for PCI, PII or HIPAA data. So you need to know when Apex managed sharing is the answer, not write it from memory.

One oddity: the guide's opening paragraph still calls the credential "Sharing and Visibility Specialist" in two places, while its title and every other section say Architect. It's a copy error in the official page, not a different exam.

Where It Sits on the Architect Path

There's no exam called "Application Architect". The Application Architect credential page says it's granted once you hold four certifications:

1. Platform App Builder
2. Platform Data Architect
3. Platform Developer
4. Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect

The Sharing and Visibility Architect credential page lists Application Architect, Platform Data Architect, System Architect and Technical Architect as related certifications. Sharing and Visibility is a good architect exam to take first: Data Architect leans on the same internals (implicit sharing, group membership, recalculation) and then asks what happens to them at scale. Our Platform Data Architect certification guide covers that exam.

The Four Exam Sections and What They Test

All weights and objectives come from the official outline.

Permissions to Standard Objects, Custom Objects, and Fields: 27%

The right level of object and field permissions for a set of users, the right way to hide data at the user interface level, access controls for sensitive data (PCI, PII, HIPAA), and the programmatic solution that makes code enforce security settings.

Watch for: the near-miss permissions. Salesforce's View All and Modify All overview separates View All Records / Modify All Records (one object, the better choice for people who manage that object's records) from View All Data / Modify All Data (every object, for org-wide administrators). None of them override field-level security, and none can be assigned to external users. Also know the difference between hiding and securing: page layouts and tab settings change what the UI shows, while object permissions and field-level security control access to the data itself.

Access to Records: 39%

Org-wide defaults, the role hierarchy, sharing rules, groups, teams, object relationships, programmatic sharing, sharing with external users, and record access overrides. This is the heart of the exam.

Watch for: four things that come up again and again.

• External org-wide defaults. Internal and external authenticated users can have different defaults, and the external access level can't be more permissive than the internal one. "Public Read Only internally, Private externally" is the classic pattern.
• Implicit sharing. A user with access to a child case, contact or opportunity gets read-only access to the parent account, and the implicit sharing reference notes it's expensive to maintain on accounts with many children and isn't granted by View All on the child object.
• Apex managed sharing versus manual shares. Apex managed sharing uses an Apex sharing reason and is kept when the record owner changes. A share written in Apex with the default Manual row cause is deleted on an owner change. If a scenario says access must survive reassignment, that's your clue.
• Restriction rules. They work in the opposite direction to everything else in this section: restriction rules filter the records a user already has through org-wide defaults and sharing, so the user sees only those matching your criteria. They're available for custom objects, external objects, quotes, contracts, events, tasks, time sheets and time sheet entries, with up to two active rules per object in Enterprise and Developer editions and up to five in Performance and Unlimited. Activities are the textbook use case, because tasks and events are hard to make truly private with org-wide defaults alone.

Territory questions now use the current name: Enterprise Territory Management is now Sales Territories, with the same mechanics under the new name.

Access to Other Data: 16%

One objective: the right access control for data that isn't a standard or custom object record, such as reports, dashboards, files, folders and big objects.

Watch for: the dashboard running user. A static dashboard shows data using the running user's access, so everyone who can open it sees what that user sees. A dynamic dashboard shows each viewer only their own data. When a scenario says "managers must not see other regions' numbers on the shared dashboard", the static dashboard with an executive as running user is the trap.

Implications of Security Model Choice: 18%

The scalability of the sharing solution, the license limitations that affect it, and how to test the sharing model.

Watch for: mass changes and high-volume external users. Large changes to sharing rules, roles, territories or group membership trigger long recalculations; Salesforce lets an admin defer sharing calculations and resume them in a maintenance window, but only after Customer Support enables the feature. On the license side, high-volume Experience Cloud users don't have roles, which avoids role hierarchy calculations at scale. They get record access through sharing sets (records tied to their own account or contact, one sharing set per profile), and records they own reach other users through share groups, which aren't available for Customer Community Plus or Partner Community users.

What Has Changed Since Winter '23

The outline is aligned to Winter '23, but the platform has kept moving. Learn the current behavior so a modern scenario doesn't catch you out, and so the knowledge is still right on the job.

• Apex runs in user mode by default from API 67.0. The Summer '26 release note says SOQL, SOSL, DML and Database methods now run in user mode by default at API version 67.0 and later, enforcing the current user's sharing, field-level security and object permissions. Earlier API versions still default to system mode. The same note says the WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED clause is removed as of API 67.0: use WITH USER_MODE instead. Salesforce recommends always setting the access mode explicitly (WITH USER_MODE, as user, AccessLevel.USER_MODE), whatever the API version.
• Sales Territories, not Enterprise Territory Management (see above).
• Current Experience Cloud license names. Salesforce's Experience Cloud user licenses page lists Customer Community, Customer Community Plus, Partner Community, External Apps, External Identity and Channel Account, each community license with a member-based and a login-based version. Customer Community Plus is the one for external users who need reports, dashboards and standard sharing.
• Restriction rules are part of the sharing toolkit now, so you should be able to recognize when one beats a more restrictive org-wide default.

A Six-to-Eight-Week Study Plan

1. Read the exam guide and score yourself. Rate each objective from 1 to 3. Access to Records is 39% of your score, so any weak spot there costs the most.
2. Take a baseline. Try the 18 free Sharing and Visibility Architect practice questions to see the scenario style and find your weakest section.
3. Work the official trailmix. The credential page links Architect Journey: Sharing and Visibility, and the guide recommends the Build Sharing and Visibility Architect Expertise (ARC202) course for instructor-led training.
4. Make a sharing decision table. One row per tool (org-wide defaults, external defaults, role hierarchy, ownership and criteria sharing rules, public groups, account, opportunity and case teams, Sales Territories, manual sharing, Apex managed sharing, sharing sets, share groups, restriction rules), with what it grants, who it reaches and what it costs to recalculate.
5. Build it in a free Developer Edition org. Set an object to Private, open it up with a criteria-based sharing rule, write an Apex managed share with a custom sharing reason, add a restriction rule on tasks, then log in as each test user and confirm what they see.
6. Practice under time. Book the exam when you're comfortably above 58% and can say why each wrong answer over-shares or under-shares. Our guide to answering Salesforce scenario questions helps with the "choose 2" format.

Sharing and Visibility Architect Practice Exam on Certifyforce

Certifyforce has a practice bank for this exam, written to the official outline and checked against Salesforce Help, the Apex Developer Guide and Trailhead. It isn't affiliated with Salesforce, and it contains no recalled exam questions or brain dumps.

• The Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect practice exam: 300 reviewed questions across all four sections, with timed 60-question exams weighted like the real one, section practice, and an explanation and source for every answer. The full pack is launching soon.
• 18 free practice questions picked across the four sections in proportion to their weight, each with the answer, why the others are wrong and the documentation it was checked against. No account needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many questions are on the Sharing and Visibility Architect exam?

60 scored multiple-choice questions plus up to 5 unscored ones, in 120 minutes, with a 58% passing score, per the exam guide.

How much does the Sharing and Visibility Architect exam cost?

US$400 (JPY 60,000) plus applicable taxes, and a retake costs US$200 (JPY 30,000), per the exam guide.

Does Sharing and Visibility Architect have a prerequisite?

No. The guide lists no prerequisite, but it describes a candidate with 4 to 5 years of experience implementing complex security models in Salesforce.

Is it required for Application Architect?

Yes. Application Architect is granted when you hold Platform App Builder, Platform Data Architect, Platform Developer and Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect.

Does the exam cover user mode and the API 67.0 changes?

The outline aligns to Winter '23, before the API 67.0 change. Its objective on programmatic enforcement of security settings is still tested, so learn user mode and know that WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED is removed as of API 67.0.

How do I keep the certification?

Complete the Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect maintenance badge on Trailhead once a year. If you miss the due date, the certification expires.