How to Share a Dashboard in Salesforce: Folders, Access, and Why Numbers Differ

To share a dashboard in Salesforce, move it into a folder and share that folder, because access is set at the folder level, not the dashboard. Confirm sharing permissions, then pick each person's access: Viewer, Editor, or Manager. Set the running user on purpose, since it decides what data each viewer sees. Salesforce has no public link, so reach unlicensed people through subscriptions or exports.

You shared your campaign engagement dashboard, but your VP opened an empty screen, and the cause has nothing to do with the open and click data. To share an email engagement dashboard in Salesforce, move it into a folder and share that folder, because Salesforce sets access at the folder level, not the dashboard.

That one rule trips up most admins. The Share button you expect on the dashboard does not exist, so the link to your campaign metrics carries no access behind it.

From here, you'll set permissions, run the share steps, and pick the access level each person gets. Then you'll see why two viewers can read different open rates on the same dashboard, and how to reach stakeholders without a Salesforce license. Share it right once, and the "I can't see the numbers" messages stop.

Why Salesforce shares email dashboards at the folder level, not the dashboard level

Salesforce shares dashboards at the folder level because it manages access on folders, not on individual dashboards. Your email engagement dashboard inherits the sharing settings of the folder it sits in, so the folder is the only place you grant or block access. Share the folder, share the dashboard. Leave it in your private folder, and no link will open it for anyone else.

No per-dashboard setting overrides the folder. That is why a copied URL to your campaign metrics opens to nothing for a teammate who lacks folder access.

This rule carries a cost: one folder can hold many dashboards. Share a folder that mixes youropen-rate dashboard with click-through and bounce dashboards, and every viewer gets all three. Sometimes that fits. Often, it exposes campaign data you meant to keep to one team.

One behavior catches new admins. Viewers read the charts on a shared dashboard, but to open the report behind an open-rate chart, they also need access to that report's folder.

So the folder is the real decision. Set it first, sort what lives inside it, and the rest of the share runs clean.

What you need before you can share an email dashboard

You need two permissions and a supporting edition before the Share option appears. Without them, the Share button stays greyed out or missing, and no folder setting will bring it back.

The two permissions are "Create and Customize Dashboards" and "View Dashboards in Public Folders," and an admin grants both on the user's profile or permission set. The first lets a person build and manage dashboards. The second lets them open dashboards stored in shared folders, which is where your campaign engagement dashboards live.

Edition sets the ceiling. Professional edition and above give full folder-sharing controls, while Group edition is view-only, so a user can see shared dashboards but cannot grant access to anyone else.

The same permissions explain the complaint admins hear most. When a teammate sees the folder, but the open-rate dashboard inside stays invisible, they are missing "View Dashboards in Public Folders." Grant it on their permission set, and the dashboard appears.

Confirm both permissions and the edition before you start, so you never debug a dead button mid-share. A Salesforce admin email checklist catches these access gaps before a campaign goes out.

How to share an email engagement dashboard in Salesforce, step by step

To share an email engagement dashboard, move it into a shared folder, open that folder's Share panel, and then assign access to the right people. Every step acts on the folder around your campaign reports, not the dashboard itself.

Step 1: Move the dashboard into a shared folder

Open the Dashboards tab, find your dashboard, click the row menu, and select Move. Moving it out of your private folder is what makes sharing possible in the first place. Create a dedicated folder when you want to share one campaign dashboard without exposing your whole reporting set. Check the destination folder's access first, because the dashboard instantly takes on whoever can already see that folder.

Step 2: Open the folder and select Share

Go to All Folders, open the row menu on the folder holding your campaign dashboards, and click Share. This panel is where every access decision happens, not the dashboard screen you came from. It handles users, roles, role-and-subordinates, and public groups, so you can hand your marketing team email engagement reporting in one move. Lightning labels access as Viewer, Editor, and Manager, while some Classic screens still read View, Edit, and Manage.

Step 3: Assign access to users, roles, or public groups

Search for a name, role, or public group, pick an access level, add it, then click Share. Sharing to a role or a public group scales far better than naming people one by one. Share your open-rate dashboard with a "Marketing" public group, and new hires inherit access the day they join. Individual shares are easy to forget when someone changes teams, which quietly leaves stale access behind.

Choosing the right access level for your email dashboard: Viewer, Editor, or Manager

The right access level comes down to how much control each person should have over the dashboard, not just whether they can open it. For most people on an email campaign dashboard, Viewer is the correct choice. Save Editor and Manager for the few who build or govern the reports.

Each level grants a different degree of control:

Manager access carries the most risk. A single Manager can re-share the folder or strip other people's access, so handing it out widely means you lose track of who controls your campaign reporting.

A safe default works for almost every team. Give Viewer to anyone who reads the numbers, grant Editor only to the people who maintain the dashboard, and keep Manager to one or two admins. That protects your open-rate and click data from accidental edits while keeping it visible to the whole team.

Why do two people see different open rates on the same email dashboard

Two people see different numbers on the same dashboard because every Salesforce dashboard runs as one "running user," and the charts show that user's data, not the viewer's. The figures depend on whose visibility the dashboard borrows, never on who is logged in.

The running user is the single Salesforce user whose data access decides what every chart calculates. Set it to your marketing ops lead, and everyone who opens the dashboard sees the open and click rates that the lead can see, even when their own access is narrower.

This explains the most confusing version of the problem. Picture a dashboard set to run as your campaign manager, who sees every send. A rep who normally views only their own leads still sees the full campaign open rate, because the dashboard reports through the campaign manager's access. It looks like a bug. It is the running user working as designed.

A dynamic dashboard flips this. It runs as the logged-in user instead, so each person sees only their own slice, like a rep reading open rates for the leads they own.

One limit still applies. Role hierarchy and sharing rules gate the underlying records, so folder access alone never unlocks all the data behind a chart.

Pick the running user on purpose. That single choice decides whether your team reads one shared, company-wide view or a personal one.

Sharing email dashboards with people who don't have a Salesforce license

You cannot share a live Salesforce dashboard with someone who has no license, because every native sharing option requires a seat. To reach people outside Salesforce, you send them a static snapshot or move the underlying data into a tool they can open.

Native options: subscriptions and emailed snapshots

Subscribing people to the dashboard, and Salesforce emails them a scheduled snapshot on the days and times you set. This still requires a license, so it reaches licensed teammates who never log in, not outside stakeholders.

Schedule a Monday 8 a.m. snapshot of your campaign engagement dashboard to the marketing leadership group, and they get the week's open, click, andbounce rates in their inbox. The catch is that a snapshot is a static image, so no one can filter it, drill into a chart, or read live numbers.

Exports, public links, and third-party tools

For anyone without a seat, export the report behind the dashboard to a file, or push the engagement data into a reporting tool they already use. Salesforce has no native public dashboard link, which is the exact wall the "share with the public" question keeps hitting.

Your real options are spreadsheet exports, BI tools, and display tools for office screens, each with a tradeoff. For company-wide reach, CRM Analytics and Tableau support broader, embeddable dashboards at an added cost. Every external route trades real-time accuracy or security for reach, so match the method to what the viewer actually needs: a live view, or just the numbers.

Every option above is a workaround for data that lives in Salesforce while your audience does not. When that data is your email engagement, MassMailer keeps it native, so sharing it stays the same simple folder move you already know.

Sharing email engagement dashboards with MassMailer

A MassMailer email engagement dashboard shares the same way as any other Salesforce dashboard, because the open, click, and bounce data lives inside Salesforce rather than on a separate platform. The folder rules from this guide apply with no export step and no second tool to log into. You share its folder like any other.

MassMailer records engagement on your live Salesforce records, which puts your campaign dashboards under the same folder permissions as the rest of your reports. Move the dashboard into a shared folder, give your marketing public group Viewer access, and the whole team reads live open and click rates without you sending a single screenshot.

Keep send-level reporting in its own folder. Then you hand marketing the campaign results they need while keeping unrelated dashboards out of view, the same access control you applied earlier.

That gives the whole team one live read on campaign performance from a single shared Salesforce folder, with no exports and no second login.

Share your Salesforce email dashboard the right way

Sharing a Salesforce dashboard is a folder and visibility decision, not a single button. Move the dashboard into a folder, confirm the two permissions, share that folder, and pick the right access level. Then set the running user on purpose, because it decides whether your team sees a shared view or a personal one. For people without a license, weigh a native subscription against an external export based on what they actually need.

When in doubt, default to Viewer access and keep Manager to one or two admins.

If your dashboards track email engagement, the cleanest path keeps that data native in Salesforce.Book a MassMailer demo to see shareable open and click dashboards your whole team can read from one folder.