Knowing the difference between Roles and Profiles is not only important for learning but also in an Admin career. Knowing the difference between the two might be ask in a Admin interview or the admin certification.
Shawn Posted new comment January 12, 2023
Profiles play a crucial role in determining a user’s access to various objects, fields, and other features within Salesforce, whereas roles are not always a requirement. With profiles, you can restrict or grant access to specific parts of the system depending on the user’s role or job function. Roles, on the other hand, primarily control a user’s visibility to records in relation to other users in the organization’s hierarchy. A user’s profile is usually tailored to their specific role, such as Sales, HR, or System Administrator.
Key highlights
Profiles are required and 1 profile per user. Side note- user can have multiply permission sets which allow access to further objects not included in their profile.
Salesforce does not require a user to have a Role. Roles are added for business requirements for hierarchy of access to user records. Example, you have the CEO and then you have President of a department. Under the President you have a Admin. The admin reports to the Present who can see the admin records, and the CEO can see both of their records. CEO can see all records, President can see admin. Admin can only see her own.
Trailhead link- https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/data_security?trailmix_creator_id=alugert&trailmix_slug=salesforce-profiles-roles-permissions-sharing-records-objects