Currently, ownership visibility is all or nothing. Either every user sees every record, or visibility is restricted so a user can only see and log activity on records they own. Agencies running an exclusive ownership model need the restricted setting to protect notes on live accounts.

The problem is that this also hides every record with no owner. Dormant clients, accounts needing re-engagement, lapsed prospects and anything sitting in a central pool all become inaccessible. Users get access denied and cannot log a call or progress the record without first taking ownership, which forces ownership changes that have nothing to do with genuine commercial intent and corrupt the ownership data.

It would be useful if ownership restriction only applied to records that actually have an owner. Owned records stay private to that owner exactly as they do now. Records with no owner stay open to all users for viewing and activity logging, with management retaining full access throughout.

For example, when a prospect fails to convert and returns to the central pool, any user could pick it up and log re-engagement activity, rather than the record going invisible until someone is assigned ownership of it.