Salesforce Admin Certification 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The distinction between a role and a profile in Salesforce is fundamental to managing user permissions and access levels. A role plays a critical role in establishing a hierarchical structure that influences record access; it determines how users can view or share records based on their position in the organizational hierarchy. For instance, users in higher roles can access records owned by users in lower roles, promoting data visibility and collaboration across teams.

In contrast, a profile defines the object's permissions and field-level security for users. It governs what a user can do with the objects in Salesforce, such as creating, reading, updating, or deleting records. Profiles dictate what a user has access to in terms of data manipulation but do not influence record visibility based on hierarchy.

This combination of capabilities—roles managing access based on hierarchy and profiles controlling permissions around object interactions—ensures that Salesforce environments are organized and secure while allowing appropriate accessibility based on user needs.