User Setup & Login Process

What is a feature license?

A license that entitles a user to access an additional feature that is not included with his or her user license, such as Marketing or Work.com.

Explain the difference between production and sandbox environments.

A sandbox is a copy of production environment, commonly used for testing and development. Sandbox and production environments use different login URLs: Production: https://login.salesforce.com. Sandbox: https://test.salesforce.com

Describe a session, and what settings influence sessions.

A session is established when a user successfully logs in, and ends when a user logs out. I recommend exploring the session settings referenced in the article by navigating to Setup --> Security Controls --> Session Settings.

Explain the importance of Salesforce user records.

An active user record is required to login to Salesforce. Records can only be assigned to an active user or a queue.

Describe the capabilities of Salesforce to manage multiple currencies.

By default, Salesforce supports one currency within an org. Multiple currencies can be enabled by feature request, and allows for static conversion rates between currencies. As of the Winter 15 release, the "Allow Support to Activate Multiple Currencies" checkbox is exposed under setup (Company Profile --> Company Information); however, you must still raise a case with Salesforce to enable the feature after checking this box in the setup. Once multiple currencies is enabled, advanced currency management allows for dated exchange rates (e.g. use the exchange rate at the opportunity's close date instead of a static rate).

Describe computer activation, and under what conditions it occurs.

Computer activation is designed to prevent unauthorized access to Salesforce.com, particularly in the event of a hijacked username and password. Computer activation is required when all of the following conditions are false: the user is logging in from within a Trusted IP range and a browser cookie indicating a prior login is present.

List and describe the various editions of Salesforce.

Developer Edition (DE), Sales Cloud Editions (SalesforceIQ Starter, Professional Edition, Enterprise Edition, Unlimited Edition, Performance Edition), Service Cloud Editions, Force.com Editions, Other Clouds & Products

Explain the concept of record ownership.

Every record in Salesforce must have an owner. Records can be owned by either users or queues. By default, the user that creates the record is the owner. Record owner is typically used to determine responsibilities (e.g. I manage the leads that I own), reporting (I am credited for the opportunities that I own), record security, and for a variety of other purposes.

Explain the difference between user and feature licenses.

Every user must be assigned one (and only one) user license. This is their primary license. Users can also optionally be assigned one more more feature licenses.

Explain the difference between deactivating and freezing a user account.

Freezing a user account will temporarily prevent a user from logging in (e.g. during a maintenance window, or if configuration prevents user deactivation), while deactivation of a user completely revokes access.

What is the translation workbench do?

It lets you specify languages you want to translate, assign translators to languages, create translations for customizations you've made to your Salesforce organization, and override labels and translations from managed packages. Everything from custom picklist values to custom fields can be translate so your global users can use all of Salesforce in their language.

Explain the implications of user localization settings.

Locale: changes display of dates, times, numbers, names, and addresses. Language: determines which language translatable elements (UI, fields, etc.) are displayed in to the user. Time zone: determines the offset used to display time references in Salesforce (similar to changing the time zone on your computer). Currency locale: configured org-wide unless multiple currencies is enabled. Determines the formatting of currency fields, and used to determine currency conversion when multiple currencies is enabled.

Describe the settings an administrator controls to conditionally allow or prevent user authentication.

Login IP Ranges are used to prevent login except from specific IP addresses. Login Hours are used to prevent login during certain hours of the day. The permission (profile/permission set) "API Enabled" is required for a user to authenticate via the API.

Describe queues

Queues help you prioritize, distribute, and assign records to teams who share workloads. Queues are used for a variety of purposes. Each queue can include multiple users, and is assigned to one more objects. Members of the queue can then take ownership of a queue's records. For instance, leads generated from the company's website are routed to a lead queue "Inside Sales". Members of the inside sales team then take ownership of leads owned by the queue as they have availability to call additional leads.

Describe the capabilities of Salesforce Adoption Manager.

Salesforce Adoption Manager (Setup --> Manage Users --> Adoption Manager) is a feature introduced in Spring '15 that sends customized notifications to users based on how they use Salesforce in order to drive more robust user adoption.

Describe the translation capabilities of Salesforce.

Salesforce has several tiers of language support; each supports translation to a different degree. Regardless of the language tier, custom elements (such as custom fields, objects, and picklist values) must be translated using the translation workbench.

Describe the capabilities of SMS based identity confirmation and two factor authentication.

Salesforce.com now offers the ability to perform identity confirmation via SMS (text message) or via email. SMS provides an additional layer of security in case email credentials are composed. Two factor authentication refers to requiring two independent mechanisms to successfully authenticate. The most common example of this is a username/password combined with a randomly generated number (similar to computer activation - however, the randomly generated number may be generated by another system or device, and is required for every authentication.

Explain how licensing influences what actions a user can perform.

The combination of a user's licenses and permissions determines what functionality they can access and what actions they can perform within Salesforce. For instance, to create a campaign within Salesforce, the user must have the Salesforce user license, the Marketing User feature license, and the permission to create campaign records.

Describe the security token, and under what conditions it is required.

The security token is a mechanism designed to prevent unauthorized access via the API. A user must append their security token to their password when authenticating via the API, unless they are connecting within a Trusted IP range.

Describe the steps required to login as another user.

The user must grant the administrator login access, or the administrator must have the setting "Administrators Can Log in as Any User" enabled. Once complete, the administrator can then login as users that have granted permission (or as any user when "Administrators Can Log in as Any User" is enabled), which is incredibly helpful for troubleshooting purposes.

User license

This license determines the baseline of features that the user can access. Every user must have exactly one user license. You assign user permissions for data access through a profile and optionally one or more permission sets.

Describe how to monitor computer activations.

To monitor and revoke activations, navigate to Setup --> Security Controls --> Activations.

Describe the different methods that can be used to authenticate to Salesforce.

Website: The standard Salesforce user interface. API: Used for programmatic access, such as the data loader. Single Sign On (SSO): Not discussed. OAuth: Not discussed.