Admins

Checklist: 7 Actions to Take When Your Admin Leaves

By Bart Lont

A few things in life are certain. One of them is that the Salesforce Admin will leave the organisation someday. This may seem the end of the world, but hey, we’ll get through this! Just relax, keep breathing, grab a coffee and go through your comprehensive Admin resignation checklist.

In general, it’s a no-brainer to deactivate users when they leave the organisation. Deactivating the (solo) Admin user, however, is a lot more tricky. Maybe you have already experienced issues in the past with failing processes after deactivating an Admin user? Here is a checklist to eliminate disruptions from now on.

1. Let’s Freeze!

First of all, create a new Admin user and freeze the former Admin user. This prevents the former Admin logging in, while all automations and configurations remain unaffected. This gives you time to execute all necessary adjustments before permanently deactivating the former Admin’s user account.

Freezing the Admin account on their user record.

2. Check Automations

Only the person that last edited a Flow will get notified when any errors occur – therefore, you should check if the former Admin owns any automations.

If so, deactivating and activating the automation with another user account (like your new Admin user) solves the issue. Also, check who is the default workflow user and which user is assigned to receive the ‘Apex Exception Email‘ messages. Pay special attention to all declarative automations like the creation of tasks, field updates and email alerts. Don’t forget to test the automations after you have made adjustments!

Setting the Default Workflow User in Salesforce Setup.

3. Check Rules

There might be several active rules that involve the former Admin. Therefore check approval processes, case assignment rules, validation rules, default case/lead owner and case/lead queues, and then remove or replace the Admin user account.

4. Check Scheduled Jobs

Have a look at:

  • (scheduled) Dashboards,
  • Reports,
  • Scheduled Apex,
  • Scheduled jobs
  • Data export

When you do, change the running user to an active account with the relevant permissions and record visibility.

Jobs should not be assigned to inactive users

5. Check Integrations

You wouldn’t be the first to have an Org where the Admin credentials are used to set up integrations with 3rd party solutions (external services). Make sure to set new credentials to prevent any service disruption.

Best practice advice: use an integration user to set up integrations, not a named Admin user. It is also common sense to change the passwords of all services the former Admin had access to.

6. Change Record Ownership

Records shouldn’t be owned by an inactive user so transfer ownership of records to make sure that users can continue to access vital data and keep business moving as usual!

7. Company Information

If necessary, change the primary contact on the ‘Company Information’ page in the setup of your Org.

Setting the Primary Contact in Setup – Company Information

There you have it! You just cleared all steps to safely deactivate the former Admin user account. You definitely deserve some cake to celebrate!

The Author

Bart Lont

Bart has been a Salesforce enthusiast since 2018 and is currently working as an admin for a Dutch non-profit organization.

Comments:

    Arnold Brown
    December 04, 2019 3:53 pm
    I believe there's more to do. Default case creator, Default lead assignment lead owner. Lots of stuff actually. One tip would be to spin up a sandbox and deactivate the user in sandbox. The system will throw up roadblocks. Each time you clear one, another will pop up. Very helpful in planning for deactivating the person in prod.
    Niek van Hengel
    December 05, 2019 1:26 pm
    Great post, saves a lot of headaches!
    Charlie Wigram
    January 13, 2020 1:39 am
    Spinning up a sandbox right now, very helpful tip rather than trial and error in Production...
    J Aldridge
    October 15, 2020 5:16 pm
    Thank you for adding this tip - doing right now!
    J Aldridge
    October 15, 2020 5:16 pm
    Thank you, following these steps right now!

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