Using Chrome Profiles to Manage Access to Client Accounts

When you work with multiple clients over the course of your workday, it can be complicated and messy to manage multiple client accounts and environments.

Chrome profiles allow you to maintain separate sets of bookmarks, login information, saved passwords, settings, and even themes. You can easily switch between these environments, or have multiple Chrome profiles open at the same time to easily switch between client and personal environments.

At Regroove, the consulting and development firm that powers Navo, the clients we work with are often using Office products. That means we’re managing access to Office 365 Admin accounts, SharePoint environments, and Microsoft Teams instances. Rather than relying solely on password caching to switch between client accounts, we utilize Chrome profiles (accessible in both Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge) to easily manage our client environments.

For example, we might manage a client’s Office 365 users, Exclaimer settings, Orchestry account, and more. Our consultants set up a profile with the client’s organization name and create bookmarks for all the tools that we work with on behalf of that client. We can save account information and passwords to that client profile, while keeping non-client related information separate and secure.

In this article, we’ll walk through setting up and using Chrome profiles to manage access to client accounts. We use Microsoft Edge at Regroove, but we’ve included the steps for using Google Chrome too.

Setting Up Your Chrome Profile

The first step in using Chrome profiles to access client accounts is to set up your own Chrome profile for your work access.

To set up your personal Chrome profile in Google Chrome:

1. Click on the user icon in the top right-hand corner of your Chrome window
2. Click ‘+ Add’
3. Enter a profile name and select a profile image (PRO TIP: selecting one of the provided images is optional, but helpful when searching through a large list of client profiles)
4. Click ‘Get Started’
5. Select the bookmarks you’d like to pin (or click ‘Skip’ in the bottom left)
6. Select a browser background (or click ‘Skip’ in the bottom left)
7. Set Chrome as your default browser (or click ‘Skip’ in the bottom left)
8. Click ‘Continue’ to sign in to your account and save your settings to your work profile

To set up your personal Chrome profile in Microsoft Edge:

1. Click on the user icon in the top right-hand corner of your Edge window
2. Click ‘Manage Profile Settings’ under the ‘Sign In’ button
3. Click ‘Sign In’ and log in using your work credentials

Your profile should adopt the image associated to your work account. You can rename your profile by clicking the ellipses (…) to the right of your image and profile information, then clicking ‘Edit’. Rename your profile with your name or your organization for ease of access when choosing from multiple Chrome profiles in the list.

Once you’ve created your work profile, you can manage passwords, payment information, addresses, and browser data from your profile settings page. Access this page any time by clicking on your profile image in the top-right hand corner of the browser window and selecting ‘Manage Profile Settings’.

Setting Up Client Accounts

When your work profile is set up and ready for use, it’s time to start adding your client accounts! To add an additional Chrome profile, click your profile image in the top right-hand corner of the browser window and select ‘Add a Profile’ at the bottom of the drop-down window.

To set up your client profiles in Google Chrome:

1. Click on the icon in the top right-hand corner of your Chrome window
2. Click ‘+ Add’
3. Enter a profile name and select a profile image (PRO TIP: selecting one of the provided images is optional, but helpful when searching through a large list of client profiles)
4. Click ‘Get Started’
5. Select the bookmarks you’d like to pin (or click ‘Skip’ in the bottom left)
6. Select a browser background (or click ‘Skip’ in the bottom left)
7. Set Chrome as your default browser (or click ‘Skip’ in the bottom left)
8. Click ‘Continue’ to sign in to your client-assigned account and save your settings to your work profile

To set up your client profiles in Microsoft Edge:

1. Click on the icon in the top right-hand corner of your Chrome or Edge window
2. Click ‘Manage Profile Settings’ under the ‘Sign In’ button
3. Click ‘Sign In’ and sign in using your client-assigned credentials
4. Click the ellipses (…) button, then click ‘Edit’
5. Enter the organization’s name as your profile title, then select an image to represent the organization (PRO TIP: selecting one of the provided images is optional, but helpful when searching through a large list of client profiles)

Once your client profile has been set up, search for and pin the sites you commonly access while conducting work for the client. Log in and save password information to the profile to ensure quick access the next time you’re working in this client’s environment. Repeat this process for all of your clients.

Accessing Client Accounts

Now that you have set up multiple client profiles, you can access them by clicking your profile image in the top right-hand corner of the browsing window. Under your current profile settings, you’ll see all of your additional client profiles listed in the drop-down window. Select one of your client profiles to easily switch to that client environment.

Browsing as a Guest

For quick access to a browser with no account and password information saved, open a guest browser.

1. Click on your profile image in the top right-hand corner of the browser window
2. Click ‘Guest’ in Google Chrome or ‘Browser as guest’ in Microsoft Edge at the bottom of the drop-down window

This is a great option for quickly accessing a website or application without automatically signing in with one of your other saved accounts. It’s also useful when testing access to a website or application without the interference of cached browsing history.

Multiple Profile Preference Settings

When you have multiple Chrome profiles to manage in Microsoft Edge, there are a few preference settings that will help ensure ease of access when switching between accounts. To set your preferences:

1. Click on your profile image in the top right-hand corner of the browsing window
2. Click ‘Manage profile settings’
3. Click ‘Multiple profile preferences’ under your current account information

Turn on ‘Automatic profile switching’; this enables your browser to automatically detect when a link is associated with another profile, and to automatically switch to that profile. You can also select a default profile for external links to open in. For example, you might set all external links to open first in your personal work profile.

Chrome Profiles for Demos

Do you demo products or processes to your clients? Creating a demo Chrome profile allows you to control the settings in your browser to establish the proper environment to demonstrate specific use cases to your clients.

For example, when demonstrating Navo to potential clients, we use one of our demo environments that best suits the prospective client’s needs. If the client uses SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, we use an environment with those sites linked in the browser to demonstrate global navigation within Office 365. For potential clients that do not use Office 365, we use a Chrome profile set up with the web app and browser extension to demonstrate how Navo can create an ‘intranet-of-things’ by connecting all of the various tools and applications the client uses.

Conclusion

The implementation of Chrome profiles is an easy way to manage client and organization access and information. The profiles offer a specific location to save passwords, websites, tools, and applications related to the client environment, while enabling profile switching in one click. This is also extremely useful to prepare specific use case demo environments, so that your settings are pre-configured when demonstrating a product or process to a client.

Looking for an easy way to link to client information, tools, resources, and applications for your organization? Check out Navo at getnavo.com!

Originally published at https://getnavo.com on September 29, 2020.