Who can see a report or dashboard

A report or dashboard is visible to you only when it is active and you created it, or it has been shared with all users or with one of your roles, profiles or teams. Nothing is visible to anyone until someone makes it so: you build a report or dashboard privately, test it, and then publish it deliberately. That keeps half-built content out of everyone's menus, but it also produces the most common analytics complaint — "the report is missing" — which is almost never a lost report and almost always an unshared one.

Overview

Sharing decides two things for each report and dashboard: whether it appears in a user's Reports or Dashboards list and folder tree, and whether that user can open it. It does not decide which rows the user sees inside it — the report's query, filters and the user's own data access do that — and it never lets anyone change the definition.

Sharing is granted to groups, not to individual people: All users, or selected Roles, Profiles and Teams. Someone who joins a shared role inherits every report shared with that role on their first day, with no per-person maintenance.

Dashboards add a second, finer layer: each page (tab) of a dashboard can be limited to some roles, profiles or teams.

When to use it

• You have finished building a report or dashboard and want your team to use it.
• Someone says a report or dashboard is "missing", "gone" or "empty".
• A dashboard has a tab that only managers should open.
• An administrator needs to give a role access to several reports at once, or check which reports a role already has.

How xMatix handles it

The visibility rule

A report appears in your Reports list — and you can open it — when it is active and at least one of these holds:

• you created it;
• it is shared with All users;
• it is assigned to one of your roles, profiles or teams.

Dashboards follow the identical rule with their own sharing. Three consequences are worth stating plainly because they surprise people:

• There is no administrator bypass. The Reports and Dashboards lists show an administrator only what the rule grants them, like anyone else.
• Inactive means unlisted for everyone. An inactive report or dashboard drops out of every user's list and folder tree, its creator's included, while its definition and sharing are kept.
• Licensing comes first. A report or dashboard that reads data from a product your organization is not licensed for is removed from everyone's list, whatever its sharing says. A folder that held only such content disappears with it.

New content starts private

A newly created report or dashboard is visible only to its creator. So is a clone — the Clone Report dialog copies the query, columns, filters and folder, but not the sharing. Publishing is therefore a step you must remember, and forgetting it explains most "my team can't see it" reports.

What the Visibility choices mean

Dashboards need their sources shared too

A dashboard's tiles fetch their data separately, as the person viewing. A tile built on a report runs that report under the viewer's own visibility, so a viewer who cannot see the report gets a tile that cannot load its data. Dashboard shared + report unshared = a dashboard of broken tiles. When you share a dashboard, share every report behind its tiles with the same audience in the same sitting. Tiles built on an entity follow the viewer's entity, field and record permissions — see Create a dashboard.

Per-page (tab) grants on dashboards

Each page of a multi-page dashboard can carry its own grant, set in the designer:

• A page with no grant is visible to everyone who can open the dashboard. This is the default.
• A page that names roles, profiles or teams is visible only to holders of at least one of them.
• The restriction is real, not cosmetic: the restricted page, its tiles and the data behind them are never sent to anyone outside the grant — including in PDF exports and subscriptions.
• A viewer who matches no page at all is treated as someone who cannot see the dashboard.
• The dashboard's creator always receives every page. A designer with the analytics administration capability also sees every page while editing, so a save cannot delete tabs by accident.

A single-page dashboard has no per-page grants; add a second page if part of it must be restricted.

Prerequisites

• To open the Edit dialog and save a report's or dashboard's name, description and folder: the analytics administration capability (setup.metadata.analytics.manage).
• To change Visibility in that dialog, or to manage report and dashboard grants from a role, profile or team: the security administration capability (setup.security.manage).
• To set per-page grants: access to the dashboard designer (Design), which also uses setup.metadata.analytics.manage for anyone other than the creator.
• The roles, profiles and teams you want to share with must already exist — see Roles, teams and business units and Security profiles.

Procedure

Step 1 — Share a report from the Reports page

1. Open Reports in your app and find the report in the list.
2. In the row's actions column choose Edit. The Edit report dialog opens with Name, Description, Role and folder and Visibility.
3. Under Visibility choose Only me, All users or Selected users.
4. For Selected users, pick entries on the Roles, Profiles and Teams tabs. Each tab shows how many you have selected.
5. Choose Save. The message "Report updated" confirms the change, and the list refreshes.

If you choose Selected users but pick nothing, the dialog refuses to save with "Select at least one role, profile, or team, or change the visibility scope."

Step 2 — Share a dashboard from the Dashboards page

1. Open Dashboards and find the dashboard.
2. In the row's actions column choose Edit. The Edit dashboard dialog opens.
3. Set Visibility exactly as for a report, then choose Save. "Dashboard updated" confirms it.

A new dashboard's Visibility can be set in the New dashboard dialog before you choose Create; leaving it on Only me while you build is the recommended habit.

Step 3 — Share the reports behind the dashboard's tiles

For each report-backed tile, repeat Step 1 for its report with the same audience as the dashboard. Then open the dashboard as a member of that audience (or ask one to) and check that every tile loads.

Step 4 — Limit a dashboard page to some people

1. Open the dashboard and choose Design.
2. Either choose Share in the designer header — the Share dialog lists a Link with Copy link, then every page with its current audience — or select a page and open its Who can open this page section.
3. Pick Roles, Profiles or Teams for the page. Leave all three empty to keep the page open to everyone ("Visible to: Everyone").
4. Choose Save dashboard.

If the page you are restricting is the only page some readers could open, the designer warns "This is the only page a reader can open": anyone outside the list would open the dashboard and find nothing.

Step 5 — Give a role, profile or team several reports at once (administrators)

1. Go to Setup → Access control and open Roles, Profiles or Teams.
2. Open the role, profile or team.
3. Open its Reports tab (or Dashboards tab). It lists what is already shared with this group, with Folder, Active and Modified columns.
4. Choose Add, select the reports or dashboards, and choose Save. To withdraw one, use Remove on its row.

The Add list offers every report or dashboard in the organization, including private and inactive ones, so this is also how an administrator recovers content that nobody can see (see Common problems).

Step 6 — Share a saved dashboard view

Inside a dashboard you can save the open page and its applied filters with Save view…. In the Save current view dialog choose Only me or Everyone who can see this dashboard, name the view and choose Save view. A shared view never widens access: it is offered only to people who can already open the dashboard.

Business rules

• Visibility is checked on every list, folder tree, open and run — not only in the menu. Opening a report link you are not entitled to answers as if the report did not exist.
• A report's grant list and a dashboard's grant list are independent. Sharing one never shares the other.
• Choosing All users or Only me clears any role, profile and team assignments on save; choosing Only me also removes the all-users share.
• Per-page grants are stored by role, profile and team name, so they survive moving the dashboard to another environment with a package; the content-level Visibility assignments are made by picking existing groups.
• Clones and new content start with no grants.
• There is no Active switch on the Reports or Dashboards screens. A report or dashboard that has stopped appearing for everyone, including its creator, may be inactive; the Active column on a role's, profile's or team's Reports and Dashboards tabs shows it.

Example

A regional sales manager builds a "Weekly outstanding by branch" report and a "Collections" dashboard with two pages: Overview and Overdue accounts.

1. While building, both stay on Only me.
2. The manager asks the analytics administrator to publish them. The administrator edits the report and sets Visibility → Selected users → Roles → Sales Manager and Teams → Collections Desk.
3. The administrator edits the dashboard with the same audience, then opens Design → Share and limits Overdue accounts to the Sales Manager role.
4. A member of the Collections Desk team opens Dashboards: the dashboard is listed, the Overview page loads with every tile populated, and the Overdue accounts tab is not there. A sales manager sees both tabs.

Training

Practice exercise

In a sandbox, sign in as an analytics author and create a simple report. Confirm a colleague in another role cannot find it under Reports. Edit it, set Visibility → Selected users with your colleague's role, and save. Expected result: the colleague now sees the report in their list, and reopening Edit shows Selected users with "Roles (1)". Then clone the report and confirm the colleague cannot see the clone — its Visibility is Only me.

Quick reference

• Visible = active + (creator, or All users, or one of your roles/profiles/teams).
• No administrator bypass in the Reports and Dashboards lists.
• New and cloned content is private.
• Selected users means roles, profiles and teams — not people.
• Share a dashboard's reports with the same audience as the dashboard.
• Per-page grants restrict tabs and their data; empty grant = everyone.
• Administrators can bulk-share from Setup → Access control → Roles / Profiles / Teams → Reports / Dashboards → Add.
• Changing Visibility needs setup.security.manage.

Permissions

A user without these capabilities who chooses Edit sees the save fail with an error such as "Failed to update report: 403" or a failure to load visibility; ask an administrator to make the change.

Configuration

• Content visibility per report or dashboard — Reports or Dashboards → row Edit → Visibility.
• Content visibility per group — Setup → Access control → Roles, Profiles or Teams → open one → Reports / Dashboards tabs.
• Per-page grants — dashboard Design → Share, or the page's Who can open this page section.
• Who may administer sharing — grant setup.security.manage and setup.metadata.analytics.manage on the right security profiles (Setup → Access control → Profiles → Entitlements). See Security profiles.
• Product licences — content that reads an unlicensed product stays hidden regardless of sharing; licensing is described in Security profiles.

Common problems

"The report is missing from my Reports list"

It has not been shared with you, it is inactive, or it reads data your organization is not licensed for. Ask an administrator to check it from Setup → Access control → Roles (or Profiles / Teams) → your group → Reports → Add, where every report is listed; adding it there shares it with your group.

"Nobody can see a report — not even the administrator"

Content with no grants is visible only to its creator. If the creator has left, or the content arrived through an import or package with no grants, it is invisible to everyone in the Reports and Dashboards lists. It still exists: share it from a role, profile or team's Reports or Dashboards tab (Step 5).

"The dashboard opens but some tiles fail or stay empty"

The viewer can see the dashboard but not the report behind those tiles, or lacks access to the entity a tile reads. Share each backing report with the same audience (Step 3) and check the viewer's data access. The general method for "user can't see X" is in Diagnosing what a user can't see.

"A tab of the dashboard is missing for some people"

That page has a per-page grant they do not match. Open Design → Share to see each page's audience.

"The dashboard is in the list but will not open"

The viewer may match none of the dashboard's page grants. Leave at least one page open to everyone, or add the viewer's role to a page.

"Save fails in the Edit dialog"

You lack setup.metadata.analytics.manage (to save the details) or setup.security.manage (to change visibility). If you chose Selected users with nothing picked, the dialog asks you to select at least one role, profile or team.

Common questions

Why can't our administrator see a report in the Reports list?

Because the list applies the same visibility rule to administrators as to everyone else — there is no bypass. The report is not gone. An administrator with setup.security.manage can open Setup → Access control → Roles, open their own role (or a profile or team they hold), and use Reports → Add to share it; the Add list shows every report in the organization, including private and inactive ones.

Does sharing a report let people change it?

No. Sharing grants viewing: recipients can open the report, filter it, export it and subscribe to it. Changing the definition, its name or its sharing is governed by capabilities (setup.metadata.analytics.manage and setup.security.manage), not by the visibility list. A shared report still shows each viewer only the rows their own data access allows.

Can I share a report with one specific person?

Not from the screens. Selected users offers roles, profiles and teams only. Put the person in a team (or use a role or profile they already hold) and share with that group — it also keeps working when the next person joins.

Is a restricted dashboard tab just hidden?

No. A page the viewer does not match is removed before the dashboard reaches them, together with its tiles and the data behind them, and the same applies to PDF exports and subscription emails. It is a real access boundary.

Related topics

• Reports in xMatix
• Dashboards in xMatix
• Create a dashboard
• Subscriptions
• Troubleshooting analytics
• The xMatix security model
• Roles, teams and business units
• Diagnosing what a user can't see