Question

Difficulty: MediumOrganization-Wide Defaults (OWD)

Universal Health System tracks confidential compliance findings using a custom object named Compliance_Audit__c. Executive leadership mandates that only record owners and users above them in the role hierarchy should have access to these records by default. All other users must be denied baseline access. Which Organization-Wide Default (OWD) setting and hierarchy configuration should the Salesforce administrator implement to satisfy this security mandate?

  1. Set the Default Internal Access to Private and ensure Grant Access Using Hierarchies is selected.Answer
  2. B
    Set the Default Internal Access to Public Read-Only and remove Object Read permissions from profiles of unauthorized users.
  3. C
    Set the Default Internal Access to Private and deselect Grant Access Using Hierarchies, assuming custom objects always propagate access up the role hierarchy.
  4. D
    Set the Default Internal Access to Public Read/Write and assign a Permission Set Group to revoke access from non-owner users.

Answer

Set the Default Internal Access to Private and ensure Grant Access Using Hierarchies is selected.
The correct answer specifies setting the OWD to Private and maintaining Grant Access Using Hierarchies enabled. Setting OWD to Private ensures that users have zero baseline visibility to records owned by others, satisfying the requirement to restrict general access. Keeping Grant Access Using Hierarchies selected ensures that higher-level roles in the hierarchy inherit access to records owned by their subordinates.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Determine the baseline access required for non-owners.
Since non-owners must have no default visibility, the Organization-Wide Default (OWD) for the object must be set to the most restrictive level, which is Private.
OWD defines the baseline level of access that the most restricted user should have to records they do not own.
2
Evaluate role hierarchy requirements for custom objects.
To allow managers above record owners to access compliance records, Grant Access Using Hierarchies must remain enabled.
For custom objects, Grant Access Using Hierarchies can be enabled or disabled. When enabled, users vertically above the owner in the role hierarchy inherit access.

Key Concept

Organization-Wide Defaults (OWD) set the baseline data security for an object, and Grant Access Using Hierarchies controls vertical access propagation for custom objects.
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