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.

Zoho CRM Edition	Default Profiles	Additional Profiles
Free Edition	Administrator Standard User	0
Professional Edition	Administrator Standard User User-defined Profiles	15
Enterprise Edition	Administrator Standard User User-defined Profiles	25

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

Click on Setup > Admin Settings > Profiles.
In the Profiles: page, click on New Profile.
In the Create New Profile page, enter the profile name and select the existing profile from the profile Name and Existing Profile fields respectively.
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

Field Name	Description
Data Level Permissions
Everyone can view/edit all users data	To enable/disable users accessing other users records.
Admin only can view/edit all users’ data. Others can only view/edit their data alone.	To specifically enable/disable users with Administrator role to access all the users’ records and standard users access their own records. If this option is selected standard users cannot access other users’ records.
Record-level Permissions	Select the modules (Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Cases, and others) to be displayed in users work area.
Create	To create records in a module.
Edit	To modify records in a module.
Delete	To delete records in a module.
Import Permissions
Import My Records	To import records pertaining to the individual users. You can enable/disable import permission for the Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Campaigns, Cases, Solutions, Products, Price Books, Vendors, and Attachments.
Import My Organization Records	To import records pertaining to the organization-wide users. You can enable/disable import permission for the Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Campaigns, Cases, Solutions, Products, Price Books, Vendors, and Attachments.
Export Permission	To export records pertaining to the organization-wide users. You can enable/disable export permission for the Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Campaigns, Cases, Solutions, Products, Price Books, and Vendors.
Tool Permissions
Mass Transfer	To transfer records in bulk from one user to another user. You can enable/disable mass transfer permission for the Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Campaigns, Cases, Solutions, Products, Price Books, and Vendors.
Mass Delete	To delete records in bulk from the Zoho CRM system. You can enable/disable mass delete permission for the Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Potentials, Campaigns, Cases, Solutions, Products, Price Books, and Vendors.
Manage Reports & Dashboards Permissions
Manage Reports & Dashboards	To create/modify/delete reports & dashboards and the folders for the reports.
Schedule Reports	To schedule delivery of reports to the intended users.
Admin Permissions
Manage Users	To manage users
Manage Profiles	To manage profiles
Manage Roles	To manage roles
Manage Groups	To manage groups
Change Owner	To change owner in each record view page.
Data Migration	To import the complete data from external application.
View Users Information	To view other users details.
Customize Zoho CRM	To customize the pages, fields and others in various modules.
General Permissions
Mail Server Configuration	To configure the mail server details. Mail server configuration is not available for On-demand Zoho CRM. It is available only in Packages product.
Export Users	To export user details into CSV format.
Export Notes	To export all the notes into CSV format.
Export Competitors	To export all the competitors details into CSV format.
Import My Attachments	To import user-specific attachments to the records.
Import My Organization Attachments	To import organization-specific attachments to the records.
Convert and Merge Leads	To enable convert and merge options in leads details page.
Mass Change Status Leads	To change the status of the leads in bulk.
Approve Web Leads	To approve the leads captured from Website using Web-to-lead form.
Web To Lead	To create Web-to-lead form for publishing in your Website.
Manage Lead Assignment Rule	To defile lead assignment rules.
Mass Email Leads	To send mass emails to leads.
Mass Email Contacts	To send mass emails to contacts.
Web To Case	To create Web-to-case form for publishing in your Website.
Delete Activities	To delete activities in bulk.
Manage Workflow	To setup workflow process for your organization.
Manage Email Templates	To setup mass email templates.
Field Level Access Permissions	To setup field level access permission for the users.

To control permissions

Click the Setup > Admin Settings > Profiles.
In the Profiles page, under the Profiles List section, click either on Edit to modify the modules list or the profile name to view the module-level access control list.
In the Profile Details:<Profile Name> page, the module-level access permissions are displayed.
Click the Edit button to modify the module-level access for the profile.
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
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

Click the Setup > Admin Settings > Users.
In the Users page, click on Edit for the specific <User Name>.
In the User: <User Name> page, select the profile from the Profiles pick list.
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

Click on Setup > Admin Settings > Profiles.
In the Profiles page, click on Del for the specific <Profile Name>.
In the Delete Profile page, transfer the existing users to the new profile.
Click on Transfer & Delete .

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 override the Create, Update and Export permissions of module.

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

Managing Profiles

Key Features

Module Level Permissions

Sub module-level permissions

Field-level permissions

Creating Profiles