Sharing in Salesforce using Controlled by Parent

This article provides an overview of the Master-Detail Sharing Setting for the Account, Contact, and Asset objects, which enables a Lookup relationship that extends access through the "Controlled by Parent" Organization-Wide Default (OWD).

Consider the following scenario: if the Sharing Setting for the Contact or Asset object is set to Private, the Account Owner will be unable to view the Contacts or Assets related to their Account.

To grant access to child records, the relationship design must be configured in the same manner as "Controlled by Parent" within a Master-Detail relationship.

The "Controlled by Parent" setting identifies the parent record exclusively through the standard Lookup fields of the Master Object.

In a Master-Detail relationship, the standard Lookup fields are always required by default and stores the Parent ID.

For example, on the Contact object, the Parent Account ID is stored in the standard Account ID Lookup field.

On the Asset object, either the standard Account ID Lookup field or the standard Contact ID Lookup fields stores the direct parent of the asset record.

It is important to note that "Controlled by Parent" consider only Standard Look up, if both Standard lookup and Custom lookup available on the same object.