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Getting Started > Working with Records > About Data Access, Record Sharing, and Record Ownership

About Data Access, Record Sharing, and Record Ownership

Your access to data in Oracle CRM On Demand is determined by certain access-control components that are associated with your user role in Oracle CRM On Demand, as follows:

• Privileges. You can access certain business data or administrative data if your user role is granted the privilege for that data. For example, if your user role has the Manage Workflow Rules privilege, you can access all of the workflow configuration data.
• Record-type access and access profiles. To access records of a given record type, your user role and your access profiles must have the appropriate settings, as follows:
  • For top-level record types, access to the record type must be granted to your user role. For example, to access any account record, your user role must be granted access to the Account record type.
  • Your access profile must allow you to access the record type. Access profiles also control which operations you can perform on the data that you can access. For example, your owner access profile could grant you editing rights to account records that you own, and your default access profile could grant you read-only rights to account records that you view through shared access but do not own.

    NOTE: Access profiles are also used in various record-sharing mechanisms, which are explained in the next section.

Record-Sharing Mechanisms

Users can share records through the following record-sharing mechanisms:

• The company's reporting hierarchy. For example, a manager can see a subordinate's records.
• User delegation. For example, a user can delegate access to another user who might not be in the same reporting hierarchy.
• Custom book membership. For example, a diverse group of users can be granted access to a set of records associated with a custom book called Hot Deals.
• Team membership. For example, the owner of an account record can share the account with a set of users at his discretion.
• Group membership. A group is a predefined team of users. For example, if a user who is a member of a group becomes the owner of a contact record, all other members of the same group are also added to the contact team. For more information about groups, see Group Management.

NOTE: Sharing data through custom books is the most efficient method of sharing data for large companies where users share more than one million records.

Record Ownership Modes

For most of the record types that support custom books, your company administrator can set up record ownership for the record type in user mode, book mode, or mixed mode. Depending on your company's policies and on the ownership modes that are configured for the record types, you can own records directly, access records through record-sharing mechanisms, or a combination of both. The record ownership modes are as follows:

• User mode. When a record type is configured in user mode, each record of that record type must have an owner assigned to it. A user owns a record when the user is associated with the Owner field of the record. If the Book field is available on the detail page of the record, then the Book field displays the user book associated with the owner.
• Book mode. When a record type is configured in book mode, records of that record type do not have owners assigned to them. Instead, each record must have a primary custom book associated with it. Associating a primary custom book with a record does not mean that the custom book owns the record, because a custom book is a record-sharing mechanism. Associating a primary custom book with a record indicates only that the record primarily belongs to a custom book and does not belong to any particular user. The book mode is useful in reports where you want to indicate that a record belongs to a certain custom book so that it is not counted multiple times if the record is also shared with other books.
• Mixed mode. When a record type is configured in mixed mode, a record of that record type can be set up in any one of the following ways:
  • The record can be set up without either an owner or an associated primary custom book.
  • The record can have an owner assigned to it.
  • The record can have a primary custom book associated with it.

For record types that do not support custom books but require an owner, only the user mode of record ownership is supported.

In any record ownership mode, a record cannot have both an assigned owner and an associated primary custom book. However, in any of the ownership modes, you can assign additional custom books to a record, if the record type supports custom books.

If the Book field is present on a record Detail page, then the field can show the name of a user book or a primary custom book for the record, or the field might be blank, as follows:

• If the record is owned by a user, then the Book field shows the name of the user book for the record owner.
• If the record is not owned by a user, then the Book field might show a primary custom book for the record, or the field might be blank.

Your company administrator configures the record ownership mode by making certain fields required for the record type. Your company administrator can change the record ownership mode for a record type. For information about configuring record ownership modes, see Configuring Record Ownership Modes.

Default Values in Owner and Book Fields

When you open a New record page, the values in the Owner and Book fields are as follows:

• If the record type is configured in user mode, then the Owner field is automatically populated with your alias. The Book field, if it is present, is automatically populated with the name of your user book.
• If the record type is configured in mixed mode, then neither the Owner field nor the Book field is populated.

  NOTE: Appointments that you create through your calendar are an exception to the normal behavior for record ownership modes. When you create an appointment through your calendar, the Owner field is populated with your name, regardless of the record ownership mode.

• If the record type is configured in book mode, then the following happens:
  • The Owner field on the new record is not populated.
  • For the Book field, the default value depends on the default book that is specified for the record type on your user record, as follows:
    • If a custom book is specified as the default book for the record type, then the Book field on the new record is automatically populated with the name of the specified default book.
    • If a default book is not specified for the record type, or if a user book or the All book is specified as the default book for the record type, then the Book field is not populated on the new record. For information about the All book, see Using the Book Selector.

NOTE: Either the Owner field or the Book field can be a required field on a page layout, even if the record type is configured in mixed mode. If the Owner field is required, then the Owner field is blank by default when you open a New record page, but you must select an owner for the record before you save the record. When you select an owner for the record, the Book field shows the name of the user book for the owner. If the Book field is required on the page layout, then you must select a primary custom book before you save the record.

What Happens When the Record Ownership Mode for a Record Type Changes?

When the record ownership mode for a record type changes from one mode to another mode, then the following happens:

• When you create a new record of that record type, you might be required to select an owner for the record or to associate a primary book with the new record, depending on the new ownership mode.
• If you are the first user to update a record after the ownership mode changes, then you might be required to select an owner or a primary book for the record before you can save your changes, depending on the new ownership mode. The following table shows the behavior in each circumstance.

  Old Mode	New Mode	Behavior
  User mode	Book mode	You are required to select a primary custom book in the Book field.
  User mode	Mixed mode	You can select an owner in the Owner field or a primary custom book in the Book field, but you cannot select both.
  Book mode	User mode	You are required to select a user in the Owner field.
  Book mode	Mixed mode	You can select an owner in the Owner field or a primary custom book in the Book field, but you cannot select both.
  Mixed mode	User mode	You are required to select a user in the Owner field.
  Mixed mode	Book mode	You are required to select a primary custom book in the Book field.

In addition, if the owner of an existing record is removed from the record when the record is updated after the record ownership mode for the record type changes from user mode to another mode, then the following happens:

• If the record type supports teams, then all of the members of the team, except the former owner of the record, remain as members of the team. The behavior is the same for team members who are members of a predefined group; that is, all of the members of the group, except the former owner of the record, remain as members of the team. However, the Account record type is an exception to this rule. If the former owner of an account is a member of a predefined group, then all of the members of the group are removed from the team. Any team members who are not members of the predefined group remain as members of the team, as is the case with other record types.

  NOTE: In the standard application, the former owner of the record is not retained as a member of the team, as described here. However, your administrator can configure the record type so that the former owner of the record is retained as a member of the team on the record. For information about configuring a record type to retain the former owner as a member of the team, see Customizing Previous Ownership for Shared Records.

• If an activity that previously had an owner is updated and the owner field is cleared, then the activity no longer appears in the calendar of the former owner. However, the activity appears in the lists of related activities that users access from record Detail pages. Any user, including the former owner of the record, who has access to the record through book membership sees the activity in the related list of open or completed activities as appropriate.