After a profile is created, it can be associated with a new or existing user object as the default profile for that user. By doing so, the attributes defined in the profile are associated with the user, and the user’s attributes are updated whenever the profile is modified.

Attributes can also be set directly at the user level to override settings at the profile level.

For example, a company conducts an analysis of the tasks and responsibilities of its database operators at multiple sites. They find three tasks that are common to this type of user: database and file location maintenance, debugging, and database backups.

They create a profile for maintaining databases called dbop (database operator) with the appropriate subject privileges:

Whenever the company hires a new database operator, the database administrator can associate the dbop profile with that new user. Doing so automatically assigns the maintain_locations, trace, and operator privileges to the user.

If the company alters the dbop profile to include the maintain_users privilege, the change automatically affects any user currently using the profile.

Because the dbop profile did not specify the option to audit the query text associated with user queries, users associated with this profile are not audited for query text. To audit the query text for only one of the users associated with the dbop profile, this option can be turned on at the user level (by using the ALTER USER statement). This overrides the default for that particular user, without affecting any other users of the dbop profile.