To ensure that sales representatives cannot modify virtual container work orders, the most effective approach is to adjust their profile permissions by removing the 'Edit' access for the Work Order object.
Profiles in Salesforce control object-level permissions, determining whether a user can create, read, edit, or delete records of a particular object. By configuring these permissions appropriately, administrators can enforce data security and integrity.
In this scenario, since virtual container work orders are provisioned immediately and should remain unaltered by sales reps, removing the 'Edit' permission ensures that these users have read-only access to the Work Order records. This setup prevents unauthorized modifications while allowing sales reps to view necessary information.
Implementing a sharing rule to change access for all Work Orders to 'Read' (Option A) is not suitable, as sharing rules are designed to open up record access beyond the default sharing settings; they cannot restrict permissions beyond what is defined in profiles or permission sets. Modifying the Record Type/Page Layout assignment (Option B) to make fields read-only affects only the layout and user interface, not the underlying object permissions, and can be bypassed by users with 'Edit' rights.
Therefore, the optimal solution is to adjust the sales representatives' profile by removing their 'Edit' permission on the Work Order object, aligning with best practices for managing object-level security in Salesforce.
For more detailed information on configuring object-level security and profiles, refer to the Salesforce documentation: