PermissionSet

Represents a set of permissions that’s used to grant additional access to one or more users without changing their profile or reassigning profiles. You can use permission sets to grant access, but not to deny access. This object is available in API version 22.0 and later.

Supported Calls

create(), delete(), describeSObjects(), query(), retrieve(), search(), update(), upsert()

Fields

Field Name	Details
Description	Type string Properties Create, Filter, Nillable, Group, Sort, Update Description A description of the permission set. Limit: 255 characters.
IsOwnedByProfile	Type boolean Properties Defaulted on create, Filter, Group, Sort Description If `true`, the permission set is owned by a profile. Available in API version 25.0 and later.
Label	Type string Properties Create, Filter, Group, Sort, Update Description The permission set label, which corresponds to Label in the user interface. Limit: 80 characters.
Name	Type string Properties Create, Filter, Group, Sort, Update Description The unique name of the object in the API. This name can contain only underscores and alphanumeric characters, and must be unique in your organization. It must begin with a letter, not include spaces, not end with an underscore, and not contain two consecutive underscores. Corresponds to API Name in the user interface. Limit: 80 characters.
NamespacePrefix	Type string Properties Filter, Group, Nillable, Sort Description The namespace prefix for a permission set that's been installed as part of a managed package. If the permission set isn't packaged or is part of an unmanaged package, this value is empty. Available in API version 23.0 and later.
Permissions`PermissionName`	Type boolean Properties Create, Filter, Update Description One field for each permission. If `true`, users assigned to this permission set have the named permission. The number of fields varies depending on the permissions for the organization and license type. To get a list of available permissions in the SOAP API, use `describeSObjects()`. Tip
ProfileId	Type reference Properties Filter, Group, Nillable, Sort Description If the permission set is owned by a profile, this field returns the ID of the Profile. If the permission set isn’t owned by a profile, this field returns a null value. Available in API version 25.0 and later.
UserLicenseId	Type reference Properties Create, Filter, Group, Nillable, Sort Description ID of the UserLicense associated with this permission set. This field is nillable in API version 26.0 and later.

Usage

Use the PermissionSet object to query existing permission sets.

For example, to search for all permission sets that contain the “Modify All Data” permission:

When combined with the PermissionSetAssignment object, you can create a nested query that returns all users assigned to a particular permission like “Modify All Data”:

You can also create a permission set, or delete a permission set if it isn't assigned to a user.

User Licenses

The user license controls the permissions that are available in a permission set.

Every permission set may be associated with a user license. If you plan to assign a permission set to multiple users with different licenses, leave UserLicenseId empty. If only users with one type of license will use this permission set, set the UserLicenseId to that single user license. To get the UserLicenseId, run this query:

Alternatively, to query a user or profile for the UserLicenseId.

Child Objects

When using the API, think of each permission set or related set of access controls as starting as an empty container that you fill with permission records.

In the API, a permission set can contain user, object, and field permissions, as well as setup entity access settings for other settings, such as Apex classes.

ObjectPermissions and FieldPermissions objects are available in API version 24.0 and later.
The SetupEntityAccess object is available in API version 25.0 and later.

Only user permissions are managed in the PermissionSet API object; all other permission types are managed in child API objects.

In these child objects, access is stored in a record, while the absence of a record indicates no access. In order to return a record in a SOQL query, a minimum permission or setting is required for each child object.

Because permissions are stored in related objects, it’s important to understand what questions to ask when using SOQL. For example, you may want to know which permission sets have “Delete” on an object or have the right to approve a return merchandise authorization (where the approval checkbox is controlled with field permissions). Asking the right questions when using SOQL with permission sets will ensure that you get the information you need to make an informed decision, such as whether to migrate permissions or assign a permission set to a user.

For example, the following returns all permission sets where the “Read” permission is enabled for the Merchandise__c object.

You can query for all permission sets that have “Read” on an object. However, you can’t query for permission sets that have no access on an object, because no records exist for that object. For example, the following returns no records because the object must have at least “Read” to return any records.

If you have at least the “Read” permission on an object, you can create a conditional query on other permissions in the same object. For example, the following returns any records where the object has at least the “Read” permission but not the “Edit” permission.

To set an object or field permission to no access, just delete the record that contains the permission. For example, to disable all object permissions in the Merchandise__c object for a particular permission set, first query to retrieve the ID of the object permission record.

Then delete the IDs returned from the query.

If you try to update the object or field permissions by setting all permissions to false, the permission record is automatically deleted. As a result, any subsequent queries for the record ID won’t return any results and you must add a new permission record to grant access.

Note

Viewing a Permission Set with Nested Queries

You can build on the PermissionSet object using child relationships that show all of the permissions in a single permission set. For example, the following returns all permission sets and displays the “Transfer Leads” permission as well as any “Read” permissions on any objects and fields.

Associated Profiles

In API version 25.0 and later, every profile is associated with a permission set that stores the profile’s user, object, and field permissions, as well as setup entity access settings. Permission sets that are owned by profiles can be queried but not modified.

The following example returns all permission sets, including those owned by a profile.

The following returns all permission sets except those owned by profiles.

Because permission sets have child objects in the API, you can query their values on permission sets owned by a profile. For example, the following returns all enabled object permission records for profiles only.

Once you have the IDs for permission sets that are owned by profiles as well as those not owned by profiles, you can use the PermissionSetAssignment object to determine whether users can access an object or field via a permission in their profile or any of their permission sets. For example, the following SOQL query returns all users who have the “Read” permission on the Merchandise__c object and specifies whether the permission is granted through a profile or permission set.

For permission sets that are owned by profiles, don’t use any Name and Label values that are returned in a query, as they can change at any time.