Managing Profiles

In Zoho CRM, profile function controls the permission to CRM modules, records, fields in a record, and various utilities, such as import, export, send email, mass update etc. Users associated to the profile can access the functions that are assigned to them.

Key Features

Profile controls the following functions:

• Module-level permission
• Sub module-level permission
• Field-level permission
  

Module Level Permissions

• Tab visibility
• View Records
• Create Records
• Edit Records
• Delete Records

Sub module-level permissions

• Manage Reports & Dashboards
• Import Records
• Export Records
• Mass Transfer
• Mass Delete
• Mass Update and more.

Field-level permissions

• Visibility of fields
• Restrict editing of fields (Read-only)
  

For more information about user defined profiles, refer: Zoho-CRM - User Profiles Matrix

In Zoho CRM - Profiles module, you can perform the following operations:

• Create/Modify the profile
• Manage module-level permissions
• Manage sub module-level permissions
• Manage field-level permissions of records
• Associate profile to the users
• Delete profiles 

Creating Profiles

By default, Administrator and Standard profiles are provided for the convenience of new users. While creating a profile, first you have to associate the existing profile to the new profile and later you can change the modules and field-level access control.

Steps in creating a new profile

• Module level access: Enable or disable the access to modules (tabs)
• Record-level access: Enable or disable permissions to View, Create, Edit, and Delete records
• Sub module-level access: Enable or disable permission to access sub-modules, such as Import, Export, Mass Mail, Mass Update, Mass Transfer etc, to the users associated to the profiles.
• Field-level access: Enable or disable permission to access the fields in a record. In addition you can restrict the access to edit the fields

To create profile

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup page, under Admin Settings section, click the Profiles link.
3. In the Profiles: page, under the Profiles List section click the New Profile button.
4. In the Create New Profile page, enter the profile name and select the existing profile from the profile Name and Existing Profile fields respectively.
5. Click Save.
   The new profile is first associated with the existing profile. Later you can modify the access control list for the new profile.

Controlling Module-level Access

After creating a profile, you must control the access to the modules (Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Cases, Solutions, Products, Price Books, Tasks, Events, Forecasts, Vendors, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, and Invoices), import/export, tools, report access, system administration, and general permissions to the profile. Users with System Administrator privilege can manage the module-level access control lists.

Module-level permissions:

• Tab Visibility: Permission to allow/disallow access to the modules (tabs)
• View: Permission to view the records in module
• Create: Permission to create the record in module
• Edit: Permission to modify the record in module
• Delete: Permission to delete the records in module

In the <Profile Name> form, you need to specify the profile-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various standard fields in the form.

List of system-level access control functions

To control permissions

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup page, under the Admin Settings section, click the Profiles link.
3. In the Profiles page, under the Profiles List section, click either the Edit link to modify the modules list or the profile name to view the module-level access control list.
   
4. In the Profile Details:<Profile Name> page, the module-level access permissions are displayed.
5. Click the Edit button to modify the module-level access for the profile.
6. In the Profile Information page, specify the access permissions for the following:
   • Module-level Permissions
   • Record-level Permissions
   • Import Permissions
   • Export Permissions
   • Tools Permissions
   • Reports & Dashboards Permissions
   • Admin Permissions
   • General Permission
7. Click Save.

Note: You cannot edit the default roles, such as "Administrator" and "Standard User". These are provided only for your reference. Hence, you are strongly recommended to define your own profiles based on the existing default profiles.

Managing Field-level Security

Refer to: Setting up Field-level Security

Associating Users with Profile

You can associate the profile with the users so that they can access CRM modules and fields that are assigned to them. Users with System Administrator privilege can associate profile with user.

To associate user with a profile

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup page, under the Admin Settings section, click the Users link.
3. In the Users page, click the Edit link for the specific <User Name>.
4. In the User: <User Name> page, select the profile from the Profiles pick list.
5. Click Save.

Deleting Profiles

For a better organization of your Zoho CRM account, you may delete some of the unwanted profiles after assigning the users to the other profile. Before deleting a particular profile, Users associated to that profile must be transfered to other existing profile. You can delete all the profiles except "System Administrator" and "Standard User" profiles.

To delete a profile

1. Click the Setup link.
2. In the Setup page, under the Admin Settings section, click the Profiles link.
3. In the Profiles page, click the Del link for the specific <Profile Name>.
4. In the Delete Profile page, transfer the existing users to the new profile.
5. Click the Transfer & Delete button
   The profile will be permanently deleted.

Limitations

1. Field-level permissions are not enabled for the following modules hence they are out of the Security Management Scope:

• Reports
• Dashboards
• Calendar

2. If you have Import and Zoho Sheet View permissions, you can update all read-only fields in records.

3. Zoho Sheet View permission will bypass the Create, Update and Export permissions of module.

4. Manage Reports & dashboards permission will bypass the Export data permission.