Quick Implementation Tip: Standard Profiles

Having helped implement a number of SalesForce systems for customers, I have learned some best practices/tips that can make an implementation go much easier.  So, over the next few blog posts I will highlight some of those tips in detail.

To start this series, I will start with tips I have learned around profiles.  When a new SalesForce system is turned up, a number of standard SalesForce profiles are enabled.  These are usually named System Administrator, Marketing User, Contract Manager, Solution Manager and Standard User.  While these profiles are great and contain everything needed, there are some gaps I have discovered about them which include:

• You can't easily edit them around what system settings are available
• You can't easily edit them around what they show
• They often contain all the objects/tabs and cause confusion for new users

So, what I personally recommend is cloning upon first setting up the system.  For example, I would clone the 'Standard User' profile and make a new one called 'Client Name Standard User' and I would also clone the 'System Administrator' profile and make a new one called 'Client Name System Administrator'.  Then I would go into these profiles and do the following:

• For the standard user profile I would update it to only include the objects I want there for go live.  So, often I would hide Ideas, Contracts, Solutions, etc. unless their implementation was actually going to use those features on going live.  I hide these because when doing training with new users, change is scary enough to a new system.  Having to remember that they don't use "this tab" or "that tab" initially makes it even harder.  I might as well hide those tabs until the client is ready to actually do the proper implementation of said feature
• For the system administrator profile I seldom change anything; however, by having this in place if there client decides in the future they want a "junior administrator" vs a "senior administrator" I have already got the leg work ready here.  This also gives me the ability to remove features from the client's administrator view if needed.

In the next post I will discuss some of the report and view changes I usually make.