--- schema_version: "1" id: 2061ec36d03bfa562093542d619ec348cd1770224bfaef41a6c9954684354d0f title: How Category Visibility Differs from Other Salesforce Models collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/service/264-0-0/category_visibility_comparesharing.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.category_visibility_comparesharing.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: 83d645513980935c37a7f4edaaefd9779bdd0d25a216bb7af08629ce8c190db7 description: These settings are unique to articles and questions and differ from other Salesforce models products: - Service Cloud release: "264" --- # How Category Visibility Differs from Other Salesforce Models These settings are unique to articles and questions and differ from other Salesforce models ### Required Editions
Available in Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience. View supported editions.
These settings are unique to articles and questions and differ from other Salesforce models: Exclusive to articles and questions [Category group visibility settings](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.category_visibility_whatis.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Data category visibility can be set with roles, permission sets, permission set groups, or profiles. Data category visibility determines the individual data categories, categorized articles, and categorized questions that you can see.") determine who can access articles and questions. Although they are standard objects, articles and questions do not have organization-wide defaults, sharing rules, or manual record sharing. Access Category group visibility settings are based on the user’s role, permission set, or profile. Child roles cannot see more categories than their parent role. To change a user's visibility to categories and therefore categorized articles and questions, you must [change the visibility settings for the user's role, permission set, or profile](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.category_visibility_modify.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "You can edit your data category visibility."), or, if custom data category visibility is not assigned, [make certain categories visible to all users](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=service.category_visibility_default.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "You can edit the default data category visibility."). Broad interpretation of visibility settings To ensure a wide range of relevant information, category group visibility is broadly interpreted. Setting a category as visible makes that category and its entire directly related family line—ancestors, immediate parent, primary children, other descendants—visible to users. For example, consider a Geography category group with continents such as Asia and Europe at the top level, various countries at the second level, and cities at the third level. If France is the only visible category selected, then you can see articles classified with Europe, France, and all French cities. In other words, you can see categories that have a direct vertical relationship to France but you cannot see articles classified at or below Asia and the other continents. ![Note](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-service-support-264-0-0-production-enus/dd14551c-a772-4db6-9a1d-d84df8df2980/images/icon_note.png) Note Only the first-level categories in the category group are visible on the Answers tab. In the Geography example, only the continent categories appear on the Answers tab; therefore, if France is the category selected as visible in category group visibility settings, zone members can see questions classified with Europe.