Manage user profiles

2025-05-14

Assign all users to profiles that reflect:

Their business role
The department they work in
Another type of categorisation

Profiles allow administrators to centrally define and manage what different types of users can access in Business Central.

The typical business use of a profile is a role. A profile is therefore named Profile (Role) in the UI.

As an administrator, you create and manage profiles on the Profiles (Roles) page. Each profile has a card where you manage settings for the related role. The card contains the following information:

Name of the role
User settings
The Role Centre that the profile uses

For more information about user settings and Role Centres, see Change Basic Settings.

Before you can manage user profiles, you must create and add the users through the Microsoft 365 Admin Centre. You can then assign permissions to each user or user group. Permissions define the features that users can access. To learn more about permission settings, go to Assign Permissions to Users and Groups.

Page customisation

You can customise page layouts for a profile so that all users assigned the profile sees the customised pages. As an administrator, you customise pages by using the same functionality as users do when they personalise. To learn more about custom page layouts, go to Customise Pages for Profiles.

Create a profile

If you can't copy an existing profile, you can create a new one manually.

Select the icon, enter Profiles (Roles), and then select the related link.
On the Profiles (Roles) page, select the New action.
Fill in the fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.

Tip

If you want a particular profile to be available only for specific users, you can enter Navigation menu only in the Description field. That setting excludes the profile from the list of available roles on the My Settings page.

Copy a profile

To save time, you can create a new profile by copying an existing one that has similar settings. When you copy a profile, you also copy page customisations, both user-created and those from extensions.

On the Profiles (Roles) page, select the line for the profile that you want to copy, and then select the Copy Profile action.
Fill in the Profile ID and Display Name fields, and then select the OK button.
On the Profiles (Roles) page, open the newly created profile card, and then edit other fields as necessary.

Edit a profile

You can edit a profile by changing the fields on the Profiles (Roles) page. However, the changes aren't available to the user assigned the profile until they sign out and sign in.

Caution

Don't rename a profile while users assigned the profile are signed in. They might have to restart Business Central and sign in again.

Assign a profile to a user

Users can assign themselves a role (representing a profile) by choosing the Role field on the My Settings page. As an administrator, you can do the same through the Profiles (Roles) page.

On the Profiles (Roles) page, select the profile that you want to assign, and then select the User Personalisation List action.
On the User Settings page, select the user that you want to assign the profile to, and then select the Edit action.
In the Profile ID field, select the relevant profile.

If you assign another profile to a user, any personalisations made by the user with the previous profile are preserved.

Define user settings for a profile

On the My Settings page, users can define basic behaviour of their account, such as the Role Centre, the language, and which notifications they get. To learn more about user settings, go to Change Basic Settings.

As an administrator, you can define settings for a profile. The settings apply to all users assigned to the role.

Select the icon, enter Profiles (Roles), and then select the related link.
Select the line for the profile that you want to change user settings for, and then select the User Personalisations List action.
On the User Personalisations page, open the card for the user whose settings you want to change.
On the User Personalisation Card page, edit the fields as necessary.

Activate a profile

When you create a profile, you can define if, where, and how the profile and its information are available to users.

On the Profiles (Roles) page, select the following checkboxes:

Enabled to specify if the related role is visible in the Available Roles page for users to choose from.
Use as default profile to specify the profile that applies to users who aren't assigned a specific role.
Disable personalisation to specify if users of the related role can personalise their workspace.
Show in Role Explorer to specify if actions to business features included in the profile are shown in the extended view of the role explorer, a feature overview. To learn more about Role Explorer, go to Finding Pages with the Role Explorer.

Export profiles

You can export profiles from Business Central and reuse them in another tenant. The profiles export to a zip file that contains Application Language (AL) files. You can reuse the AL files to develop extensions. To learn more about exporting profiles, go to Use the Client to Create Profiles and Page Customisations.

On the Profiles (Roles) page, select the Export Profiles action.

This action exports a zip file that contains AL files for all profiles.

Import profiles

You can import profiles that are exported from Business Central. The steps are more or less the opposite of the steps to export profiles.

On the Profiles (Roles) page, select the Import Profiles action.
Follow the steps in the Import Profiles assisted setup guide.

If you only want to import selected profiles, use the Selected checkbox to indicate which to import.
Select the Import Selected button.

This action imports a zip file that contains AL files for the selected profiles.

Delete a profile

You can delete a profile by choosing the Delete action on the Profiles (Roles) page. However, the following limitations apply:

You can't delete a profile that is assigned to a user or a security group.
You can't delete profiles that originate from extensions. The extension must first be uninstalled.
You can only delete one profile at a time.

Delete personalisations

Delete all personalisations made by a specific user

You can delete all changes that a user makes to any pages, which reverts the pages to the the original layout. Personalisations aren't associated with a profile (role). If a user personalises a page, they experience the personalisations on the page no matter which role they're using.

Select the icon, enter User Settings, and then select the related link.

The User Settings page lists all users.
Select the user whose personalisations you want to delete.
On the User Settings card page, select the Clear Personalised Pages action, and then accept the message that appears.

The user experiences the changes the next time they sign in.

You can also delete all page customisations for a profile. To learn more, go to To delete all customisations for a profile.

Delete personalisations for specific pages

You can delete personalisations that one or more users make to specific pages. Deleting personalisations can be useful, for example, if a business process change means that a personalisation isn't relevant. Deletions restore the page layout back to what the profile defines.

Select the icon, enter Personalised Pages, and then select the related link.

The Personalised Pages page lists all personalised pages and the user they belong to.
Select the line for the page personalisation that you want to delete, and then select the Delete action.

The user experiences the changes the next time they sign-in.

You can also delete individual page customisations for a profile. To learn more, go to To delete customisation for specific pages for a profile.

Managing user sessions

As the administrator of Business Central online, you can manage user sessions in the administration centre. To learn more, go to Managing Sessions in the administration content.

For Business Central on-premises, you can manage sessions using SQL Server Management Studio, for example. To learn more, go to SQL Server technical documentation.

Assign Permissions to Users and Groups
Customise Pages for Profiles
Personalise Your Workspace

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