Deploy Salesforce Profiles with Change Set

Is it possible to deploy Profile using Change Set?
As of now (Summer '16) release, you cannot deploy Profile as stand alone component in Change Set. But, you can include Profiles in the Change Set. What this mean? Components setting (such as: custom field, custom object, etc) related to Profile will be deployed correctly for that Profile, but bear in mind that it also will deploy profile setting for Administrative Permissions, General User Permissions, Login Hours, Login IP Ranges for the profiles.

My experience in deploying Profile with Change Set is still very challenging (even we know Salesforce is keep enhance it). As Profile is not a Change Set component, it will not allow you to upload just Profile. So, if you want to deploy Profile, the workaround is to add a component to the Change Set, such as: custom field or others, then include the profile in Profile Settings For Included Components.

Below settings in Profile need be configure manually in target organization after change set deployed, if the corresponding components are not deployed in the same change set, example: you have a custom object called Invoice and profile called Sales, let's say Sales profile have Read, Create, Edit access to Invoice in source org., but if Sales profile is not included in the change set, Sales profile users will have no access to the Invoice object.

• Standard Object Permissions
• Custom Object Permissions
• Field-Level Security
• Tab Settings
• Standard Object Layouts
• Custom Object Layouts
• Custom App Settings
• Connected App Access
• Record Type Settings
• Apex Class Access
• Visualforce Page Access

Following items will always deployed properly (overwrite target profile) in Profile when you include it, because it do not depend on other components:

• Administrative Permissions
• General User Permissions
• Login Hours
• Login IP Ranges

Profile not exist in target organization will be create, while existing profile will be overwritten (if the related components is in the change set). If you have a profile has been deleted in target instance, and you deploy Change Set with the same Profile name, deleted profile will be restored with all permissions before it is deleted.

Reference:

• About Permission Sets and Profile Settings in Change Sets
• Why didn't our change set deploy field level security settings?

Last Update: 24 Jun 2016