Collaboration is essential in a sales team. How we interact with the other members of the team, how we share information and ideas with them and the most important of all is how we share sales data that we work with. Zoho CRM provides different levels of data sharing, one being the record-level sharing where users can share individual records from any module with other users in the organization. Record sharing is just an extension to the already existing sharing rule applied to a record.

You can share records with related lists or without them. Also, records can be shared from any module, except these:

• The Activities module - Tasks, calls, and events are always associated to a record. So when the parent record is shared the associated activities are also shared. One cannot share them separately from the Activities module.
• Linking Module - Using the multi-select lookup fields you can associate multiple look-up values to a record and thereby establish a perfect many-to-many module association between two modules. A linking module is one that serves as a junction between two modules associated with a multi-select lookup field. Records in this module cannot be shared. See Also, Linking Module

So a particular record can be shared in two ways:

• Direct Sharing - A record can be directly shared with users. For example, a deal can be shared directly with users.
• Indirect sharing - The same record when associated to another record can be shared via sharing the related list. For example, the same deal could be associated to a contact in the related list. When the contact is shared along with the related lists, the deal is indirectly shared with the user.

Availability

Share Records

There are three types of sharing access that a user can provide to a record that is being shared.

• Read Only - User can only view the records that are shared with them.
• Read/Write - Users can view and edit the records that are shared with them. This does not include the permission to change the owner or delete the record.
• Full Access - User view, edit and delete the records that are shared with them. They can also change the ownership of the record.

While sharing, you can specify if you want to share the record with related lists or without the related lists. When you share a record, all the related lists associated to the record can have different sharing permissions. For example, when an account, Zylker Widgets is shared with Read/Write permission, the associated contacts and open activities can be shared with Read Only permission. Please make sure you have the Share permission enabled in your profile to share records.

To share records

1. Go to the Module from which you want to share a record and select a record.
2. In the Record Details page, click the More Actions icon and then click Share.
   
3. In the Sharing [Record] popup, do the following:
   • Select the users with whom you want to share the record.
   • Choose the access permission as Read Only, Read & Write, or Full Access.
   • Click the Add icon to add more users and define sharing permissions.
     You can add multiple users with different access permissions.
     
   • Select the With Related List checkbox, if required.
     All the associated records will also be shared. In future, if you associate new records, (for example, you add tasks), they will also be shared.
   • Click Save.
     You can always manage the sharing, as required or revoke sharing.

Points to Remember

When there are different permissions to access the same record.

• Profile permission is above all - For all the shared records, the profile permission supersedes all other permissions. For instance, you share a lead with Mary, giving her full access to the record but Mary's profile permission gives her Read Only access for the Leads module. In this case, profile permission will supersede the record sharing permission and Mary will be able to only view the records.
• Multiple permissions (via different features) - A record can be shared as per the Territory hierarchy as well as through Data Sharing Rules. In this case, when multiple access permissions are provided to access the same record, the highest permission in all these will be applicable.
• Multiple permissions (via different users) - A record can be shared by different users. Let's say Mike, the Sales Manager, shared a contact with Mary, and provided her Read/Write permission. Amy, a sales rep shared the same contact with Mary and gave her Full Access. Here, the same record is shared by two users with two different permissions. In this cases also, the highest permission will be applicable and Mary will have full access to the contact.

When there are multiple sharing for the same record.

• Where a record is shared by different users - One record can be shared with a person by different users. Say, Contact B has four deals associated to it. One of which is a Big Deal and is accessible only to John, the Sales Manager. Other three deals are accessible by Mary too, the Sales Rep. If Mary shares Contact B with Mike, he will be able to access the contact and only the three deals associated to it that are accessible to Mary.
• Where a record is shared by different ways - One record can be shared directly and the same can be shared via related list sharing. For example, Deal B can be shared directly with John. The same deal is associated with Contact B and another user shares it with John, indirectly sharing Deal B in its related list. That way the record is shared with the same user twice. If one revokes sharing, John will still be able to access the record. This is taken into consideration as a record can be shared to a maximum of 10 users. Through related lists, a record can be shared to a maximum of 12 users.

View Shared Records

For easy access to the records shared by you and those shared to you, two list views are available in all the modules; [Records] Shared to Me and [Records] Shared by Me.

The shared records have a Timeline view, where you can see the log of the shared details: when the record was shared, with whom, what permissions were given, etc. If you have shared a record, then you will be able to view the overall share history of the record.

You can check who shared a record with you.

Manage Sharing

After sharing a record, you can always manage sharing by:

• sharing the record with more users.
• revoking sharing for individual users.
• changing the sharing permissions for users.
• viewing the sharing summary.

To manage sharing

1. Go to the Module from which you want to manage sharing.
2. In the Record Details page, click the More Actions icon and then click Share.
3. In the Sharing [Records] popup, click Manage Sharing.
   • Select the users with whom you want to share the record and choose the access permission as required.
     
   • Move your mouse pointer to the users with whom the record is already shared and click the Remove icon to remove sharing.
   • Click the View Summary link.
     This provides a detailed log of the record sharing.
4. Click Done.

Revoke Sharing

If you have shared a record to users there is also an option to revoke complete sharing too. On revoking, the record will no longer be shared but let's take this case: Mike has shared Deal A with Amy and John has shared Contact A along with its related lists with Amy. Contact A has Deal A associated to it. So when Mike revokes sharing, it will still be shared with Amy as it is indirectly shared by John along with its parent record (contact).

To revoke sharing

1. Go to the Module from which you want to revoke sharing for a record and select the record.
2. In the Record Details page, click the More Actions icon and then click Share.
3. In the Sharing [Records] popup, click Revoke Sharing.
4. Click Revoke to confirm.