The Salesforce Admin's Best Friend - Login as any user

Login as any user

Here's a fictional, but very similar to a conversation I had with an end user recently.

Customer: "My report doesn't work, can you help?"

Me: "Certainly, which report are you having trouble with and what is happening when you're trying to run it?"

Customer: "It's the sales one and it's just not working...."

 A really useful feature

Login as any user is a feature you can request from Salesforce that allows you as the system admin to hop in to any account and see exactly what that user sees. 

This saves a huge amount of time when trying to debug permission issues. Instead of asking for screenshots just hop in and see exactly what the user is experiencing.

This feature has been around since Winter 12 release of Salesforce but I still think it's worth a reminder as by default it is turned off.

What does it look like?

When activated by Salesforce, you can turn on/off this feature by going to Login Access Policies.


Once you check the box in Login Access Policies go to the Users screen and you'll see an extra Login link next to each person's name. You won't see a login against your own name or API only users.

An additional Login option shows in User Management
When you click on Login again the user's name, the normal Salesforce screen appears but you're actually experiencing it as that user. To remind you of this, there's a small bar in the top showing you who you are logged in as.

When Logged in as another user there is a reminder in the top bar of Salesforce


How do I set this up?

This feature is available in:  Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer Editions

Here's the official knowledge guide on getting this feature enabled (for Free!)

And here's some additional documentation (which assumes that it's already been activated).

Image from Pexels.com, artist Burst

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