Comparing Profiles in Salesforce

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Profile Comparison in Salesforce

How often as a Salesforce administrator have you spent time trying to work out why User A can access a particular record, whereas User B (who has a different Profile) cannot?

This short post takes a look at a neat free tool from Rajiv Bhatt that helps compare profiles to help debug user access rights.

Profile Comparator for Salesforce

Step 1: Add the tool to Chrome

Profile Comparator is a Chrome Extension so you need to use that browser in order to add this functionality.


Profile Comparator page on the Chromestore

Step 2: Navigate to a Source Profile

Load up the Profile record and click on the Comparator icon in the Chrome menu bar. 
Select the page you are on as "Source Page".

Select Source Page in Tool from Menu Bar

Step 3: Navigate to a Target Profile

Load up a second profile in an additional tab. 
Then click on the same icon and select "Target Page".

Select Source Page in Tool from Menu Bar

Step 4: Compare the results

Once you click on Target Page, the tool instantly compares the two profiles and highlights differences on the Target Page. 

Differences highlighted on the Target Profile page in bright Red

One thing that totally confused me is that the tool gives no feedback that it has refreshed, you just have to navigate down the page to see the red text highlighting the differences.

Object access comparisons were really clear

Also, if the tool doesn't seem to be working check that you have disabled the Enhanced Profile Interface in Salesforce. The tool will not work with that active. 

Go to Setup / User Interface to ensure Enhanced Profile Interface is disabled
To double check that you have deactivated this go to Setup / User Interface and confirm that Enable Enhanced Profile User Interface is disabled.

Verdict


This was a really handy tool and helped me quickly identify a different setting between 2 user profiles. Great job Rajiv! 

There were only a few small suggestions I would make to improve the tool.
  1. It is slightly confusing that there is no visual indication to show you that the comparison is ready to analyse
  2. Remember to deactivate the enhanced profile user interface and bear in mind that there is no visual indiciation
  3. The tool will not help you with Field Level Security comparisons (often a next step after you have checked profile settings)
I hope you find this tool useful. If you do install it, please rate it on the Chromestore.

Icon from Iconfinder, artist Visual Pharm

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