Creating User Groups
User Groups are created from Setup > Security > Manage Groups. Both group types share the same opening flow. The difference is how you segment the users: Manual groups let you hand-pick the segment, and Automatic groups apply rule-based user segmentation through Group Conditions.
Requirements
- Administrator System Role.
- For Manual groups: the Users or Security Roles you intend to add should already exist.
- For Automatic groups: a clear definition of which User, Account, or Contact field values define membership.
Open the Manage Groups Page
- From the Setup home page, go to Security > Manage Groups.
- Click New.
Creating a Manual User Group
- In the Group Type field, select Manual.
- Enter a Name. Group names should be unique and descriptive.
- Optionally enter a Description (up to 255 characters) to explain the group's purpose to other administrators.
- Click Save & Close. The group's detail page opens.
- Click + Add Member at the top right of the page.
- In the search box, type the name of a User or Security Role and select from the dropdown. You can add multiple members in one session. Adding a Role is equivalent to adding every User who currently has that Role; new Users assigned to that Role later are also counted.
- Click Close when finished.
For full member management (removing members, the meaning of the Status column, and how the count is calculated), see Managing User Group Members.
Creating an Automatic User Group (Auto-Segmentation)
Automatic groups segment users by rule. The conditions you define are evaluated against User, Account, and Contact data; any user whose data satisfies the rules becomes a member of the segment.
- In the Group Type field, select Automatic. The Group Conditions section appears.
- Enter a Name and an optional Description.
- In the Group Conditions section, click Add Filter to add a row. Each row has three parts:
- Field — choose a User, Account, or Contact field. For lookup-style fields where multiple records share the same display text, use the record ID rather than the display value.
- Operator — the comparison (equals, contains, in, etc.).
- Value — the value or values to match.
- Add additional rows as needed.
- In the Filter Logic field, enter the expression that combines the rows. Use the row numbers shown in the table. Examples: 1 AND 2, (1 OR 2) AND 3. If left blank, all rows are combined with AND.
- Click Save & Close.
After saving, the system recalculates membership in the background. The detail page displays a spinner with "the group members are being recalculated" until the calculation completes; on large User bases this can take several minutes. The recalculation processes Users in batches of 200.
Once recalculation completes, the Group Conditions section is shown read-only on the detail page, including the Filter Logic expression, so other administrators can understand the segmentation logic without entering Edit mode.
Cloning a User Group
To create a similar group quickly, clone an existing one:
- From Setup > Security > Manage Groups, open the User Group you want to clone.
- Click the kebab menu (three dots) at the top right of the page.
- Click Clone, then confirm in the popup.
- Adjust the Name, Description, and (for Automatic groups) Group Conditions as needed.
- Click Save & Close.
Editing a User Group
- From Setup > Security > Manage Groups, open the User Group.
- Click the kebab menu at the top right of the page.
- Click Edit.
- Modify the Name, Description, or (for Automatic groups) Group Conditions and Filter Logic.
- Click Save & Close. Editing the conditions on an Automatic group triggers a fresh recalculation.
The Group Type cannot be changed after the group is created. To switch between Manual and Automatic, create a new group and migrate references in your sharing settings.
Troubleshooting Tips
- If a saved Automatic group shows zero members or a count that contradicts your conditions, see User Groups Troubleshooting.
- If your Group Conditions reference a field that returns IDs in the read-only view, confirm the field has a display label set on the related entity. Conditions render the field's display label, not its internal ID.
- Filter Logic expressions must reference row numbers that exist. If you delete a row, update the expression so it doesn't reference the removed number.
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