What Determines Field Access?

Several factors control whether users can view and edit specific fields in Salesforce. You can control users’ access to fields at
the record type, user, or field level.

REQUIRED EDITIONS

Available in: both Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience

Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer, and Database.com Editions

Page layouts are not available in Database.com

 Page layouts—Set whether fields are visible, required, editable, or read only for a particular record type.
 Field-level security—Further restrict users’ access to fields by setting whether those fields are visible, editable, or read
only. These settings override field properties set in the page layout if the field-level security setting is more restrictive.
 Permissions—Some user permissions override both page layouts and field-level security settings. For example, users
with the “Edit Read Only Fields” permission can always edit read-only fields regardless of any other settings.
 Universally required fields—Override field-level security or any less-restrictive settings on page layouts by making a
custom field universally required.
 Lookup and system fields—If you enable the Require permission to view record names in lookup fields setting, you
restrict who can view record names in lookup and system fields. Users must have Read access to these records or the
View All Lookup Record Names permission to view this data.

After setting these items, confirm users’ access to specific fields using the field accessibility grid.

Verify Access for a Particular Field

See whether access to a field is restricted and at what level—record type, user profile, or field.

REQUIRED EDITIONS AND USER PERMISSIONS

Available in: both Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience
Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer, and Database.com Editions

USER PERMISSIONS NEEDED

To view field accessibility: View Setup and Configuration

1. Navigate to the fields area of the appropriate object.

For Knowledge validation status picklists, from Setup, enter Validation Statuses in the Quick Find box,
then select Validation Statuses.

2. Select a field and click View Field Accessibility.

3. Confirm that the field access is correct for different profiles and record types.
4. Hover over any field access setting to see whether the field is required, editable, hidden, or read only based on the page
layout or field-level security.
5. Click any field access setting to change it.
To verify field accessibility by a specific profile, record type, or field, from Setup, enter Field Accessibility in the Quick
Find box, then select Field Accessibility. From this page, choose a particular tab to view and then select whether you want to check
access by profiles, record types, or fields.

NOTE In this user interface, you can’t check access for permission sets.

Modifying Field Access Settings

REQUIRED EDITIONS AND USER PERMISSIONS

Available in: both Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience
Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer, and Database.com Editions

USER PERMISSIONS NEEDED

To view field accessibility: View Setup and Configuration
To change field accessibility: Customize Application
AND
Manage Profiles and Permission Sets
From the field accessibility grid, you can click any field access setting to change the field’s accessibility in the page layout or in
field-level security. The Access Settings page then lets you modify the field access settings.

 In the Field-Level Security section of the page, specify the field's access level for the profile.

ACCESS LEVEL ENABLED SETTINGS

Users can read and edit the field. Visible
Users can read but not edit the field. Visible and Read-Only
Users can’t read or edit the field. None
 We recommend that you use field-level security to control users’ access to fields rather than creating multiple page layouts to
control field access.
 In the Page Layout section of the page, you can:
o Select the Remove or change editability radio button and then change the field access properties
for the page layout. These changes will affect all profile and record type combinations that currently use this
page layout.
o Alternatively, you can select the Choose a different page layout radio button to assign a different
page layout to the profile and record type combination.

Field-Level Security
Field-level security settings let you restrict users’ access to view and edit specific fields.

REQUIRED EDITIONS

Available in: Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience
Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer, and Database.com Editions

NOTE   Who Sees What: Field-Level Security (English only)

Watch how you can restrict access to specific fields on a profile-by-profile basis.
Your Salesforce org contains lots of data, but you probably don’t want every field accessible to everyone. For example, your payroll
manager probably wants to keep salary fields accessible only to select employees. You can restrict user access in:

 Detail and edit pages

 Related lists
 List views
 Reports
 Connect Offline
 Email and mail merge templates
 Custom links
 The partner portal
 The Salesforce Customer Portal
 Synchronized data
 Imported data

Page layouts and field-level security settings determine which fields a user sees. The most restrictive field access settings of the
two always applies. For example, you can have a field that’s required in a page layout but is read-only in the field-level security
settings. The field-level security overrides the page layout, so the field remains read-only.

You can define field-level security in either of these ways.

 For multiple fields on a single permission set or profile

 For a single field on all profiles

After setting field-level security, you can:

 Organize the fields on detail and edit pages by creating page layouts.

TIP Use field-level security to restrict users’ access to fields, and then use page layouts to organize detail and edit
pages within tabs. This approach reduces the number of page layouts for you to maintain.

 Verify users’ access to fields by checking field accessibility.

 Customize search layouts to set the fields that appear in search results, in lookup dialog search results, and in the key
lists on tab home pages. To hide a field that's not protected by field-level security, omit it from the layout.

NOTE Roll-up summary and formula fields are read-only on detail pages and not available on edit pages. They can also be
visible to users even though they reference fields that your users can’t see. Einstein Insights can also be visible to user even
though the insight references fields that your users can’t see. Universally required fields appear on edit pages regardless of field-
level security.
The relationship group wizard allows you to create and edit relationship groups regardless of field-level security.

Set Field Permissions in Permission Sets and

Profiles
Field permissions specify the access level for each field in an object.

REQUIRED EDITIONS AND USER PERMISSIONS

Available in: Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience
Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer, and Database.com Editions

USER PERMISSIONS NEEDED

To set field-level security: Manage Profiles and Permission Sets
AND
Customize Application

1. From Setup, enter Permission Sets in the Quick Find box, then select Permission Sets, or

enter Profiles in the Quick Find box, then select Profiles.
2. Select a permission set or profile.
3. Depending on which interface you're using, do one of the following:
 Permission sets or enhanced profile user interface—In the Find Settings... box, enter the name of the object
you want and select it from the list. Click Edit, then scroll to the Field Permissions section.
 Original profile user interface—In the Field-Level Security section, click View next to the object you want to
modify, and then click Edit.
4. Specify the field's access level.
5. Click Save.

Set Field-Level Security for a Field on All Profiles

REQUIRED EDITIONS AND USER PERMISSIONS

Available in: Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs)

Available in: Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions

USER PERMISSIONS NEEDED

To set field-level security: Manage Profiles and Permission Sets
AND
Customize Application

1. From Setup, open Object Manager, and then in the Quick Find box, enter the name of the object containing the field.
2. Select the object, and then click Fields & Relationships.
3. Select the field you want to modify.
4. Click Set Field-Level Security.
5. Specify the field's access level.
6. Save your changes.