Permission Sets
Permission sets are a powerful complement to profiles. They contain the same user interface and data security settings as profiles, but are designed to address situations in which the settings do not apply to a large enough population of users to justify the use of a profile, or there are too many valid combinations of settings to create a profile for each one.
For example, if one special sales rep was allowed to tentatively staff consultants to projects, he or she would require the permissions resulting from a partial combination of the Sales Rep profile and the Staffing Coordinator profile. It is not possible to combine profiles or partially apply them, so without permission sets you would need to create a whole new one-off profile for this situation. Permission sets provide an elegant, maintainable solution. You would create a permission set to grant access to the Assignment object only. The special sales rep would get assigned to this permission set, leaving his or her profile unchanged.
To manage permission sets, click Setup, and in the Administration Setup area, click Manage Users, Permission Sets. The overview page of a permission set is shown in Figure 3.4. It provides links to all of the configurable areas of a permission set. They are divided into settings specific to applications and settings that apply to all applications. After a permission set is created, it can be assigned to users using the related list on the user page labeled Permission Set Assignments.
