As a logistician you keep the articles of many clients in one catalogue. Every article can have an **owner** – the client it belongs to. Your clients see exactly the articles they own in their own catalogue, read-only. Articles without an owner are your own articles and are not visible to any client.

You can set the owner in three ways: in the article itself, through the attribute **Owner** (*Eigentümer*), or when importing articles.

![Screenshot: Article mask with the "Permissions" tab opened and the client dropdown visible](/products/images/owner-and-sharing-tab.png)

## Before you start

- Your company has at least one client. Without clients, the tab **Permissions** (*Freigaben*) is not shown. See [Clients](/company/clients.md).
- Your user needs the permission for the share settings of articles (in the *Products* section of the rights tree) – ask your administrator.
- For the attribute or import route: an attribute field with the slug `owner` exists. See [Attribute fields](/products/attribute-fields.md).

## Step by step

### Option A: Set the owner in the article

1. Open the article from **Catalogue › Overview** (*Katalog › Übersicht*). See [Edit an article](/products/edit-article.md).
2. Switch to the tab **Permissions** (*Freigaben*).
3. Under **Client** (*Mandant*), choose the client the article belongs to. Choose **Not Shared / Own Article** (*Keine Freigabe / Eigener Artikel*) if the article is your own.
4. Click **Share this article** (*Artikel freigeben*).
5. The message **Approval has been saved** (*Freigabe wurde gespeichert*) confirms the change.

![Screenshot: Permissions tab with a client selected and the "Share this article" button highlighted](/products/images/owner-and-sharing-select-client.png)

The hint in the tab sums it up: the article appears in the client's catalogue, but the client cannot edit it.

### Option B: Set the owner through the attribute

1. Open the article and switch to the tab **Attributes** (*Attribute*).
2. Set the field **Owner** (*Eigentümer*) to the client.
3. Click **Save**. The article now belongs to this client.

![Screenshot: Attributes tab of an article with the "Owner" field opened](/products/images/owner-and-sharing-owner-attribute.png)

You can set the same field when you [create an article](/products/create-article.md).

### Option C: Set the owner during the import

In an article import template you have two choices:

- Choose a **Client** (*Mandant*) for the whole template – every row of the file becomes an article of this client.
- Or map a column to **Owner (client)** (*Eigentümer (Mandant)*). The column may contain the client's company ID, company number or company name.

Details: [Import templates](/products/import-templates.md).

![Screenshot: Import template with the "Client" dropdown and the field "Owner (client)" in the mapping](/products/images/owner-and-sharing-import.png)

## Fields and options

| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| **Client** (*Mandant*) | The client who owns the article. The article then appears in this client's catalogue. |
| **Not Shared / Own Article** (*Keine Freigabe / Eigener Artikel*) | The article has no owner. It belongs to you, the logistician, and no client sees it. |
| **Owner** (*Eigentümer*) attribute | Same setting as the dropdown, but as an attribute – useful for imports and bulk changes. |

## Who sees what

| You are … | You see in **Catalogue › Overview** |
|---|---|
| Logistician | All articles of your company, including those of your clients |
| Client | Only the articles you own (read-only) |

![Screenshot: Article overview from a client's point of view, showing only the client's own articles](/products/images/owner-and-sharing-client-view.png)

## Good to know

- Article numbers (SKU) are unique per company **and** owner. Two clients can therefore have an article with the same SKU – they are two separate articles.
- The owner also decides whose stock it is in the warehouse, and it is used by export templates with a client filter ([Export templates](/products/export-templates.md)) and by [consignment](/products/consignment.md).
- If you see duplicate articles after an import, check whether the owner differs: the same SKU with a different owner creates a separate article.

| Message | Cause | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| No article ID was passed (*Keine Artikel-ID übergeben*) | The share was saved without an open article | Open the article and save from its **Permissions** tab |