Profile and page layout minimization strategy
Key Takeaway
Use the fewest profiles and page layouts you can, and hide fields with field-level security instead of page layouts.
In Agentforce Life Sciences, Salesforce recommends a three-part strategy. Use the least possible number of profiles, use the least possible number of page layouts, and use field-level security rather than page layouts to hide fields from users. Fewer profiles and layouts means fewer settings to maintain and fewer inconsistencies.
Keep profiles to a minimum
Each profile carries its own field-level security settings. Because of that, every new field you add to an object must be secured once per profile. Consolidating personas onto the fewest possible profiles means fewer field-level security settings to update each time you add a field.
An org has four field profiles, one per therapy area: Oncology Rep, Cardiology Rep, Vaccines Rep and Neurology Rep. All four groups need the same field access. When the admin adds a new field to the Account object, she must set its field-level security four times, once on each profile. She then consolidates the four personas onto one Field Sales Representative profile. The next new field she adds needs one field-level security update instead of four.
When a profile is no longer used, Salesforce recommends renaming it to include the prefix dep_, which moves it out of your way.