Profiles migration though ANT/Change Set

Question

SFDC folks – I have a question and need all your inputs on migrating Salesforce compoents(fields, Record types and pick list values…) associated to Profiles in the source org to target org though ANT migration tool/Change sets. If I include 10 fields and 3 profiles(Profile 1, Profile 2 and Profil 3 – Assume all the 3 profiles exists in target org) , Will migration tool modifies only the 10 fields and field level security settings associated with 3 profiles included in the package.xml or will it override the Profiles in the target org irrespective of fields mentioned in the package.xml in the target org?.

Also there was a saying that do not include the Profiles in any of the migration tool(ANT or Changes set) and perform all the field level security settings manually in target org after deployment. Is it is true statement. ?

My thought is we can very well include the profiles in package.xml, otherwise it will be a tedious work to enable the permissions if the fields are more.

Please clarify the above questions.

Thanks, Indy

Answer 1

If you include Profiles and 10 fields in package.xml ,all the fields along with respective of FLS of those profiles included in the package XML will be respected .

I do not think its right idea to exclude profiles in your package.xml since that will be mean lot of manual work .

In short "yes migration tool modifies only the 10 fields and field level security settings associated with 3 profiles included in the package.xml and it will not override the other settings of the profile"