What do sharing sets primarily use to grant record access?

Sharing sets primarily use profiles to grant record access. Profiles define the permissions and access levels for users within the Salesforce environment, including which records a user can view or edit. When a user has a profile that includes the appropriate sharing set, they gain access to specific records based on criteria defined in that sharing set, such as ownership or specific characteristics of the records.

In the context of Experience Cloud and sharing sets, it’s important to understand that while user permissions do play a role in overall record access, sharing sets specifically leverage the profile settings to determine which records are shared with users. The mechanism is designed to simplify administrative tasks by allowing access to multiple records that meet certain criteria without having to adjust individual record-level sharing manually.

This design helps maintain a balance between security and usability, allowing users with similar roles or functions (dictated by their profiles) to access the appropriate records seamlessly. Thus, profiles are foundational in configuring sharing sets to effectively manage record access.