How to compare two users in Salesforce – why can one do what another can’t?

Short answer: two users with the same job title often have different access, because it adds up from a profile, several permission sets and permission set groups – plus licences, public groups, queues and the role. Salesforce has no side-by-side view of two users. doDev, a free Chrome extension, compares them and says what grants each difference.

Two users in one Salesforce org compared in doDev: permission set assignments, objects, fields, Apex and custom permissions that differ, every other section marked ✓ the same

Compare them with doDev

Install doDev and open it from the toolbar while you are logged into Salesforce.
Go to Compare → Users.
Pick 2 to 5 users – from one org, or the same person in a sandbox and production.
Click Compare.

You get:

Every permission – objects, fields, system and app permissions, Apex, pages, tabs, custom permissions – combined from each user’s profile, permission sets and groups.
Which profile, permission set or group grants it, for every difference.
The rest of the picture – permission set assignments, licences, public groups, queues, teams, territories, the role path and the user record itself.
Export to CSV or Excel, or a deployable gap permission set that gives one user what the other has.

Doing it without a tool

Open both users’ records, note their profile and every permission set and group, and compare those one by one in Setup – or query PermissionSetAssignment for each user and diff the permissions yourself.

More how-to guides: all guides · doDev help