Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect Study Guide
The Certifyforce Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect study guide covers the official Salesforce Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect exam outline in 21 units across all 4 exam sections, one unit per exam-guide topic. The exam itself has 60 scored questions plus 5 unscored, a 120-minute limit and a 58% passing score, and its largest section is Access to Records at 39%. Every unit is verified against official Salesforce documentation, cites its sources, and links to the practice questions that test it. Last updated October 26, 2026.
Focused on designing secure, scalable access on the Salesforce Platform: object and field permissions, protecting sensitive data, enforcing security in code, organization-wide defaults, the role hierarchy, sharing rules, groups and teams, programmatic sharing, external user sharing, access to data beyond standard and custom objects, and the scalability, license and testing implications of the sharing model.
21 lessons · 4 exam sections · about 3 h of reading ·
Exam sections
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Every lesson's summary, exam expectations, key facts and self-check questions are free to read. The Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect pack unlocks the self-check answers, core concepts, exam traps and worked scenarios, reading progress, personalized “read next”, and unlimited practice exams.
Permissions to Standard Objects, Custom Objects, and Fields
27% of the exam- Object permissions, View All and Modify All levels~8 minHow Read, Create, Edit, Delete, View All Records and Modify All Records stack and depend on each other, how they differ from View All Data and Modify All Data, and how a minimal profile, permission sets, permission set groups, muting and user access policies deliver the least-privilege level.
- Field-level security and View All Fields~8 minHow Read and Edit field permissions protect a field in every interface while page layouts only shape detail and edit pages, which fields field-level security can't fully control, when the View All Fields object permission fits, and how to manage and audit field permissions at scale.
- UI visibility: layouts, Dynamic Forms and tab settings~7 minWhich user interface control hides a field, section, action, page or tab for whom (page layouts, record types, compact and search layouts, list views, Dynamic Forms, Dynamic Actions, Lightning page activation and tab settings), and why none of them is security.
- Encryption, Event Monitoring and transaction security policies~8 minHow to layer controls around PCI, PII and HIPAA data: data classification labels, Classic Encryption with masking, Shield Platform Encryption schemes and their tradeoffs, Event Monitoring and field history for evidence, and transaction security policies that block risky activity in real time.
- Apex access modes, sharing keywords and stripInaccessible~7 minHow Apex enforces object permissions, field-level security and sharing: sharing keywords for record access, explicit user and system access modes and the API 67.0 default change, Security.stripInaccessible and describe checks, and the framework contexts (Lightning Data Service, Visualforce controllers, Apex class access, Automated Process) that change the answer.
Access to Records
39% of the exam- Internal and external OWDs and restriction rules~8 minHow to pick the internal, external and guest organization-wide default for each object, which platform constraints lock or force a default, when a default change takes effect, and when a restriction rule or a scoping rule fits better than a tighter default.
- Role hierarchy and Grant Access Using Hierarchies~8 minHow the role hierarchy opens access upward at the subordinate's level, when Grant Access Using Hierarchies can be turned off, what role access fields give account owners, how to design branches and role counts, and which role sharing groups a sharing rule can target.
- Ownership-based and criteria-based sharing rules~8 minWhen to share by record owner or by field values, which sources, targets and access levels a rule can use (including account rules for child records and user sharing rules), what Salesforce recalculates automatically, and the limits, Apex and package caveats an architect must plan around.
- Public groups, personal groups and manager groups~8 minHow public, personal and manager groups collect users for sharing rules and manual shares, which members each can hold (and which users never can), how Grant Access Using Hierarchies and nesting change a group's reach, and how to keep large group membership changes fast and lock-free.
- Account, opportunity and case teams and Sales Territories~8 minHow account, opportunity and case teams give record-by-record access chosen by the owner, what survives an ownership change, why private opportunities and high-volume users can't use teams, and when Sales Territories or Apex managed sharing fits better than a team.
- Controlled by Parent, master-detail and implicit sharing~8 minHow a master-detail relationship makes a detail object's access follow its master (and what the detail loses), how junction objects need access to both masters, when a lookup can be converted, and what built-in implicit sharing gives between accounts and their contacts, opportunities, cases, orders and contracts.
- Apex managed sharing, share objects and sharing reasons~8 minWhen code is the right way to share records and when a declarative tool already fits, what a share object stores (and what it never stores), how row causes decide who can change a share and whether it survives an owner change, and how recalculation keeps Apex shares correct.
- Sharing sets, share groups and partner roles~8 minHow customers, partners and guests reach records: sharing sets and share groups for high-volume users, account roles and super users for role-based users, sharing rules aimed at external roles, account relationship data sharing rules, and the guest user rules that are the only way to share with unauthenticated visitors.
- Manual sharing, ownership transfer and access overrides~8 minWho can share a single record and how far, which owner and parent changes delete manual shares (and the setting that keeps them), who can transfer and delete records, and how View All, Modify All and private records change the answer when you diagnose why someone sees a record.
Access to Other Data
16% of the exam- Report and dashboard folders and running users~7 minGrant report and dashboard access through folder sharing (Viewer, Editor, Manager) plus report permissions, and control what dashboard viewers see through the running user, View My Team's Dashboards and dynamic dashboards, including external-user reporting and the aggregate-data risk of a privileged running user.
- Salesforce Files, libraries and Chatter group access~8 minControl who can see and change Salesforce Files (Viewer, Collaborator, Set by Record, privacy on records, preventing reshare), share them outside the org with public links or content deliveries, govern library files with library permissions, and secure files in Experience Cloud sites and public, private and unlisted Chatter groups.
- Knowledge data categories and CRM Analytics security~7 minControl Knowledge article access with data category visibility (roles, permission sets and profiles combined with OR, role inheritance, category families) or with standard sharing, and secure CRM Analytics with app sharing, security predicates and sharing inheritance, including its object, descriptor, join and Experience Cloud limits.
- Big objects, custom settings and external object access~8 minSecure data that the sharing model doesn't reach: big objects (object and field permissions only), custom settings and custom metadata types (Schema Settings restrictions, protected visibility, where secrets belong), external objects (Salesforce Connect identity types) and Apex controllers that can expose data unless they set an explicit access mode.
Implications of Security Model Choice
18% of the exam- Sharing scalability: skew, recalculation and role optimization~8 minWhy ownership skew, parent-child skew and group membership locking slow a sharing model, what a role or owner change really recalculates, when to defer sharing calculations, and how account role optimization and power users keep external roles under the allocation.
- Experience Cloud and platform license sharing limits~8 minHow the user licence caps what any sharing design can open: internal versus external licences, Platform licence object limits, which Experience Cloud licences get roles and sharing rules versus sharing sets, high-volume user restrictions, and what upgrades, downgrades and licence removal change.
- Testing sharing with runAs, UserRecordAccess and access summaries~8 minHow to prove a sharing model works: the insufficient-privileges walkthrough, System.runAs tests, UserRecordAccess queries, Sharing Hierarchy reasons, User Access Summary and Public Group Access Summary, restriction rule tests, and the separate checks for guest, high-volume and role-based external users.
Common questions about the Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect study guide
Is the Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect study guide free?
Partly. Every unit's summary and its "What the exam expects", "Key facts" and "Check yourself" sections are free to read without an account. The "Core concepts", "Exam traps" and "Worked scenario" sections, reading progress and unlimited timed mock exams come with the Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect pack (USD $19).
How current is the Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect study guide?
It is written to the current official Salesforce Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect exam outline, and each unit is checked against Salesforce documentation before it is published. The most recent update was October 26, 2026, and every unit shows its own last-updated date.
How does the study guide map to the official Platform Sharing and Visibility Architect exam guide?
There is one unit per topic in the official exam guide, grouped under its 4 weighted sections: Permissions to Standard Objects, Custom Objects, and Fields (27%), Access to Records (39%), Access to Other Data (16%), Implications of Security Model Choice (18%). Each unit quotes the exam objective it covers word for word.
How do the practice questions link to the study guide?
Each unit lists the reviewed practice questions that test it (309 questions are linked across the guide), so you can read a topic and practice it in one click. After a practice exam, every missed question links back to the unit that teaches it.