Creating Users is the most common admin task in any new Salesforce org. The form is short but the choices on it (License, Profile, Role) gate everything that user can do — get them right at create time and the rest is easy.
- Open Setup → Users → Users
Setup gear → in Quick Find type "Users" → Users (the second "Users" leaf, not Roles).
- Click New User
Top-right of the user list. To create more than one at once, use Add Multiple Users (limited to 10 at a time).
- Fill name, email, alias, username
Username must be unique across every Salesforce org in the world — convention is name@yourcompany.salesforce. Email is where the welcome and password-reset messages go.
- Pick a User License
Salesforce, Salesforce Platform, Identity, etc. License is locked once saved and dictates which Profiles are available. Pick before Profile.
- Pick a Profile (and optionally a Role)
Profile is the floor of permissions and tab access. Role drives the role-hierarchy sharing tree — optional, but required if you use Sharing Rules or Forecasting.
- Set Locale, Time Zone, Language, Email Encoding
These default to org defaults but each user can have their own. Wrong locale = wrong currency formatting and wrong fiscal-year reports.
- Save
On Save the user is created and a welcome email goes out (unless you unticked "Generate new password and notify user immediately"). The user must verify their identity on first login.
Required by the platform.
Required, 8 characters max. Auto-derived from First/Last — usually fine to leave.
Required and used for the welcome message. Username and Email are different fields.
Required and globally unique across all Salesforce orgs. Cannot be changed without freezing/replaying the user.
Required. Locked after Save.
Required. Drives permissions and tab access.
- Username must be globally unique across every Salesforce org. The convention is firstname.lastname@yourcompany.salesforce so you don't collide with someone else's org.
- License is locked after Save. To switch a user from Salesforce Platform to Salesforce, you have to deactivate them and recreate.
- Users can never be deleted — only deactivated. Deactivation frees up the license; the user record and all their data stay for audit.