Add New Users

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Describe a user account and the type of information it contains.
Add a single user or multiple users.
Freeze or deactivate users.

What Is a User?

As an administrator, you perform user management tasks like creating and editing users, resetting passwords, granting permissions, configuring data access, and much more. In this unit, you learn about users and how you add them to Salesforce.

So who’s a user? A user is anyone who logs in to Salesforce. Users are employees at your company, such as sales reps, managers, and IT specialists, who need access to the company's records. You can also have external users, such as end customers, prospects, and partners who access Experience Cloud sites.

A user account exists for every user in Salesforce. The user account identifies the user, and the user account settings determine what features and records the user can access. Each user account contains at least the following.

Username
Email Address
User's First Name (optional)
User's Last Name
Alias
Nickname
License
Profile
Role (optional)

Don't worry if all that sounds unfamiliar. We cover it in more detail later.

You view and manage users from the Users page in Setup. The user list shows all the users in Salesforce. From the list, you can:

Create one or more users.
Reset passwords for selected users.
View a user’s detail page by clicking the name, alias, or username.
Edit a user’s details.
Log in as any user if the system permission is enabled or if the user has granted you system administrator login access.

Key Terms

We’ve thrown many terms at you as we’ve described the background information you need to get started adding users. Here are some key terms you should know and their definitions.

Usernames

Each user has both a username and an email address. The username must be formatted like an email address and must be unique across Salesforce. It can be the user’s email address, so long as it’s unique.

User Licenses

A user license determines which features the user can access in Salesforce. For example, you can allow users access to standard Salesforce features and Chatter with the standard Salesforce license. But if you want to grant a user access to only some features in Salesforce, you have a host of licenses to choose from. For example, if you have to grant a user access to Chatter without allowing them to see any data in Salesforce, you can give them a Chatter Free license.

To learn more about licenses at Salesforce, check out Salesforce Licensing.

Profiles

Each user has one profile that defines default settings. It’s possible to use profiles to grant permissions and access to users. However, we recommend you grant users the Minimum Access - Salesforce profile, and then use permission sets and permission set groups to grant users the permissions they require.

What should be in a permission set vs. a profile?

Permission Set	Profile
User, object, and field permissions	Default record types
Custom permissions	Default assigned apps
Connected app access	Page layout assignments
Apex class access	Login hours
Visualforce page access	Login IP ranges
Tab settings

Roles

Roles determine what users can see in Salesforce based on where they’re located in the role hierarchy. Users at the top of the hierarchy can see all the data owned by users below them. Users at lower levels can't see data owned by users above them, or in other branches, unless sharing rules grant them access. Roles are optional but each user can have only one. If you have an org with many users, you may find it easier to assign roles when adding users. However, you can set up a role hierarchy and assign roles to users at any time. Roles are only available in Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, and Developer editions of Salesforce.

Alias

An alias is a short name to identify the user on list pages, reports, or other places where their entire name doesn't fit. By default, the alias is the first letter of the user's first name and the first four letters of their last name.

Guidelines for Adding Users

You have many options for adding users and multiple tools at your disposal in Salesforce. Here are some guidelines to help you get started.

Username: Each user must have a username that is unique across all of Salesforce.
Username format: Users must have a username in the format of an email address (jdoe@domain.com), but they don't have to use a real email address. They can use their email address if they wish as long as their email address is unique across all of Salesforce.
Email: Users can have the same email address across organizations.
Passwords: Users must change their password the first time they log in.
Login link: Users can only use the login link in the sign-in email once. If a user follows the link and doesn’t set a password, you (the admin) must reset their password before they can log in.

Add Users

You may have already added some users if you launched the Setup Wizard. However, you’ll probably need to add users in the future, especially as your company grows and you hire more employees.

Depending on the size of your organization or your new hire onboarding process, you may add users one at a time or several at a time. You can do either in Salesforce. The maximum number of users you can add is determined by your Salesforce edition and the number of user licenses you purchase.

To add users:

From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Users, and then select Users.
Click New User to add a single user, or click Add Multiple Users to add up to 10 users at a time.
Enter each user’s name, email address, and a unique username in the form of an email address. By default, the username is the same as the email address, but you can overwrite this.
Select the user license you want to associate with the users you create (the license determines which profiles are available for each user).
Select a profile.
Select Generate password and notify user immediately to email a login name and temporary password to each new user.
Click Save.

Now that you added users to Salesforce, is your work as an admin done? Not quite! User management is an ongoing task. Next, you learn other actions you might need to perform for your users.

Freeze a User

Pop quiz: You get an email saying a user’s Salesforce account may have been compromised. What do you do?

Well, because you’re a seasoned admin, you don’t panic. You know you can head right over to Setup and ensure there’s no risk from this user’s account.

From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Users, and then select Users.
Click the username of the account you want to freeze.
Click Freeze to prevent the user from logging in to the account.

Now the user’s compromised account is frozen to prevent any trouble, and you can relax knowing your org is secure. Freezing accounts can also come in handy when a user leaves your company and you don’t want them logging in, but you have some cleanup to do before deactivating them.

Deactivate a User

What’s the difference between freezing and deactivating users? Both actions prevent the user from logging in to their account. But freezing user accounts doesn’t make their user licenses available in your organization. That’s why you’ll want to deactivate a user after they leave your company.

From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Users, then select Users.
Click Edit next to a user’s name.
Deselect the Active checkbox, and then click Save.

You can deactivate users, but you can’t delete them. Why is this? Deleting a user can result in orphaned records and the loss of critical business information. So to ensure the user’s records and data are preserved, you deactivate users instead.

Now you know how to add users to Salesforce, as well as freeze and deactivate users when necessary. In the next unit, you learn how to keep your data safe by configuring what your users can access.