Use a security role when you want to give a user or group a general level of access to a table.
Use record sharing when you need to give someone access to one specific record or a small number of records.
Example : Suppose you have an Employee Card table. A manager normally has access only to the Employee Card records in their own business unit. But occasionally, they need to review one Employee Card record owned by another business unit. Instead of changing the manager’s security role and giving them broader access to all records in that business unit, you can share that specific Employee Card record with them.
You can also decide what they can do with the shared record, such as:
- Read
- Write
- Delete
- Append
- Append To
- Assign
- Share
Interview tip: A common follow-up is “does sharing work well for a lot of records or users?” — no, sharing is meant for exceptions, not everyday access. If you’re sharing hundreds of records the same way, that usually means you actually need a proper security role or a team setup.
