Hey everyone, if you’re preparing for the Salesforce Certified Experience Cloud Consultant (EX-Con-101) Exam, one topic you absolutely can’t skip is Salesforce Data Sharing and Access Control. This area shows up in real projects all the time, and the exam expects you to understand how to design secure yet flexible data access models within Experience Cloud sites.
Now, let’s talk about this in a practical way. In Experience Cloud, data sharing is all about giving the right people access to the right information without overexposing sensitive data. Since you’re building external sites for customers, partners, or even employees, you have to think beyond standard Salesforce internal access. The way you handle data visibility here can make or break the user experience and security compliance.
You’ll need to understand the full spectrum of Salesforce’s security model. That starts with organization-wide defaults (OWD) which define baseline access. For example, if your external users should only see records they own, you’ll keep the OWD as private. Then you use role hierarchies, sharing rules, and manual sharing to open access when needed. But remember, external users (like partners or customers) don’t follow the same role hierarchy as internal users. Their data visibility is based on their account relationships and sharing sets configured in Experience Cloud.
Sharing sets are key for the exam, they let you define which records community users can see based on their account or contact relationship. For example, if you’re setting up a customer community for support cases, sharing sets let customers view only the cases tied to their account. Similarly, share groups come into play when you’re dealing with high-volume external users (HVEs) who need broad access without using roles.
The exam also expects you to understand how profiles and permission sets work with external users. These define what users can do with data once they have access—view, edit, delete, or create. You’ll also want to know how login access policies, guest user access, and record ownership behave differently in Experience Cloud compared to core Salesforce. Salesforce has tightened guest user permissions in recent releases, so if you’ve studied older material, make sure you check the updated documentation before the exam.
For your preparation, I strongly recommend going through Salesforce’s official resources. The Salesforce Trailhead modules on Experience Cloud Sharing and Security are incredibly helpful. Also, the official Salesforce Exam Guide for the EX-Con-101 outlines this topic under the “Implementation” and “Security and Access” sections—it’s worth reading line by line to know how much weight it carries. You can find both on the Salesforce certification website.
Once you’ve gone through the official docs and Trailhead, practice is key. To test your knowledge in real exam-style scenarios, check out Pass4Future’s EX-Con-101 practice questions. They simulate the question style and logic you’ll see on the actual exam, which helps you get used to Salesforce’s tricky “choose the best two” type questions. These practice sets can boost your confidence and highlight weak areas before you sit for the real thing.
So, if you’re diving into Data Sharing and Access Control for the EX-Con-101 Exam, think of it as the backbone of Experience Cloud security design. Understand who should see what, how, and why—and connect that logic with Salesforce’s sharing tools. Once this concept clicks, you’ll not only be ready for the exam but also confident handling real-world projects that depend on secure and seamless user access.
