Deploying permission sets is often challenging in Salesforce. The more user permissions you need to handle, the more difficult it can become. Ensuring users have the correct permissions is essential for productivity and security, making efficient permission set management a critical aspect of Salesforce administration.
But why is deploying permission sets difficult? Are there better ways to ensure efficient management of these permission sets? The answer is yes, there are.
And we will discuss them in this article. Let's get started.
What Are Permission Sets?
Permission sets are a group of settings that grant users access to specific tools and functions apart from what their profiles allow. They help Salesforce admins manage user permissions and control a user's access without making frequent changes to their profile.
Why Are Permission Sets Important?
Permission sets help manage user access to diverse functions, tools, and data. It's important since permission sets simplify user access management and ensure stability as your organization grows.
Here are a few vital reasons why they matter:
- Permission sets add a layer of control over user permissions to help Salesforce admins limit access to sensitive data and features for higher security.
- Permission sets enable admins to scale permissions without creating numerous profiles as the organization grows. This also helps simplify user management.
- Businesses often need specific access for certain users. Permission sets allow precise customization to fit unique user needs. And they do it without disrupting broader role hierarchies.
- Instead of creating multiple profiles, admins can assign permission sets to grant temporary or additional access, reduce profile clutter, and simplify administration.
- When users change roles, admins can reassign or adjust permission sets quickly without modifying profiles. This ensures continuity and efficiency.
Challenges of Salesforce Permission Sets
While Sales permission sets bring various benefits to admins, users, and businesses, they are also followed by certain challenges.
Here are a few of the challenges with using permission sets in Salesforce:
- Too many permission sets can become cumbersome for larger organizations with many users and profiles.
- Assigning multiple permission sets to users without review can lead to excessive permissions. This may lead to increasing security risks and non-compliance.
- Permission sets are dependent on profiles. Hence, failing to create profiles carefully may make adding permission sets unnecessarily complex instead of simplifying them.
- Assigning permission sets to multiple users is not efficient for large-scale organizations. Hence, admins may need to depend on third-party tools.
Salesforce Permission Sets vs. Permission Set Groups
Permission sets and permission set groups are the terms we use often. When dealing with permission sets in Salesforce, understanding the differences between these two is also important.
A table shows the differences between Salesforce permission sets and permission set groups.
Permission sets are individual containers that grant specific permissions to users in addition to the permissions given by their profile. It helps ensure granular-level access. On the other hand, permission set groups are groups of permission sets bundled together to simplify assignment and management.
It takes a lot of time to assign the permission set as each permission set license needs to be transferred separately. This may lead to errors and confusion. At the same time, permission set groups help manage Salesforce permission sets better, thanks to their bundled nature.
Permission sets cannot be muted. This means that all permissions assigned to the users are always active. However, specific permissions can be muted in permission set groups for more control.
Best Practices to Use Salesforce Permission Sets
Creating permission sets in Salesforce is relatively straightforward, but managing permission sets in Salesforce is often challenging. However, using strategic practices and methods can improve how you assign and manage permission sets.
Here are six Salesforce permission sets tips and best practices to help you streamline using and managing Salesforce permission sets.
Review release notes
Salesforce shares release notes whenever there are new updates to its functionalities, including permission sets, permission set groups, and more. While it can be time-consuming to review these release notes, it only helps you stay ahead of the curve and understand what to expect.
These release notes can tell you how subsequent releases may affect your permission sets and groups. You can create and implement strategies to alleviate the impact based on these insights.
Reuse permission sets for similar groups of users.
Who says you must create a permission set whenever you want to allow someone access to certain functionalities? You can reuse permission sets for similar users, saving time. This is more efficient and proactive. With Flosum, you can also use permission groups and mute certain access to restrict access to functionalities that particular users may not need.
Add permission sets during User or Field creation
Thanks to the recent updates in Salesforce, you can see several new options on the User Management Settings page in the Setup menu. Here, you can have the option to add permission rights during user or file creation. With this functionality, you no longer have to add the existing or existing field to a permission set by navigating to all permission sets. This will save you much time and effort if you add different permission sets to diverse objects. This is available on both Enterprise and Unlimited editions of Salesforce.
Use audit trail to track changes in permission sets
If you are a business with multiple admins, understanding which permissions were enabled, disabled, or assigned helps you trace where the changes were made. This also allows you to track back where permissions were lost, if users report any such incident, and assign the same again.
View permission summary for overviews
Often, analyzing the permissions included in a permission set can take a lot of time. However, with the latest release, Salesforce has made analyzing the permissions available in a permission set easier. You can view the permissions in the set you want to analyze fully using the View Summary option.
Set expiry dates for permission sets
By default, permission sets in Salesforce don't have an expiration date. However, assigning expiry dates can enhance security and efficiency.
Depending on the type of user or the project one is working on, you can assign expiry dates to these permissions. When the date approaches, the permission expires automatically without needing to delete it, eventually saving you time and ensuring higher security.
How Flosum Helps Manage Permission Sets Better?
Using a reliable third-party tool like Flosum to manage permission sets can save time and effort.
Here is how Flosum can help you.
Partial and complete deployment of profile or permission sets
Flosum allows partial retrieval of profiles. You can also ensure partial deployment of profiles and Permission Sets using Flosum. Strategically using this capability in Flosum can speed up DevOps operations and reduce work while helping you considerably lower the chances of risks.
Automatic partial profile and permission set migration
Using Flosum, you can migrate your profile and set permission automatically. When a branch is committed to Source after deploying it to production, Flosum automatically detects the complete profile and merges the partial profiles and permission sets. It saves time and avoids the chances of errors.
Ensure better separation of duties
Flosum helps separate duties better by managing user permissions and profiles in Salesforce. This way, you can proactively define who can perform what action and ensure users only carry out actions they are authorized to do. This also helps track who makes what changes to ensure better Salesforce compliance.
Create organization-level permission sets.
You can create org-level permission sets with Flosum to avoid code overwrites and protect the integrity of the code. You can use a range of permission setup options, such as View Only, Validate Only, Developer, and Release Manager, for granular control over who can access, view, and manage what.
Ensure data security with advanced data permissions
Flosum offers a range of advanced data permission sets to ensure better data security. With permissions, such as Review Pull Request, Unlocked Package, Trust Card Manager, etc., Flosum helps control who gets access to what functionality and data. This advanced access allows users to get the permissions that they need.
Get Flosum for Better Permission Set Management and Efficiency
Managing permission sets in Salesforce efficiently is vital not just for security but also for your DevOps performance. Adhering to the best practices we discussed in the article, permission sets can be managed efficiently most of the time.
Although Salesforce does offer functionalities to manage them, they are not nearly enough. This is where Flosum can make all the difference.
It helps you:
- Deploy permission sets in full or partial capacity.
- Migrate them automatically.
- Make org-level permission sets.
- Secure data and the platform better.
If you want to see Flosum in action, book a free consultation today and let our team assist you.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the difference between permission sets and profiles in Salesforce?
Profiles in Salesforce are baseline access settings that define what users can do within the Salesforce environment. It includes Object Permission, Field-level Security, System Permissions, and more. On the other hand, permission sets to grant additional, specific permissions without altering profiles for custom user access.
2. What are the common types of permission profiles?
There are two types of profiles in Salesforce. Standard profiles include System Admin, Standard User, Read Only, Solution Manager, etc. Custom profiles include profiles made for custom use, such as Project Manager and Support Agent. etc.
3. What are the permission sets in Salesforce?
Permission sets in Salesforce grant additional user permissions to profiles in the platform other than the standard permissions that come with each profile. It also allows you to manage access to custom objects and fields.
