This article applies only to Delegated Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication in Salesforce, not to Federated Authentication (SAML) single sign-on. Enabling SSO for an organization changes the way passwords are managed in Salesforce. What follows are answers to frequently asked questions about SSO and password management.
Professional, Enterprise, Performance (Unlimited), and Developer
Lightning Experience: Setup → Users → Profiles → Choose Profile Name → Look for "Is Single Sign-On Enabled" under the Administrative Permissions section
Salesforce Classic: Setup → Manage Users → Profiles → Choose Profile Name → Look for "Is Single Sign-On Enabled" under the Administrative Permissions section
If you do not see "Is Single Sign-On Enabled" in the System Permissions section, ensure you have first Enabled Delegated Authentication in your environment.
Review Salesforce documentation on Best Practices and Tips for Implementing Single Sign-On and Configure Salesforce for Delegated Authentication before making changes to SSO configuration.
A: The user will be sent an email with a link to reset their password. When they click the link, they will be taken to a page with the notice: "Passwords cannot be reset for Single Sign-On Users. Please contact your System Administrator to reset your password."
Note: This message is not customizable.
A: The administrator will be taken to the "Change Password" screen and will see the message: "Password not reset for Single Sign-On User." No email will be sent to the user.
A: The new user receives a welcome email containing their username and a link to log in, but no password. The email subject will be "Welcome to Salesforce: Verify your account."
Note: The text of the welcome email is not customizable.
A: No. Existing users do not receive a notification when their profile is switched to an SSO-enabled profile.
A: The user will see the following message above the login box: "Your company's authentication service is currently down. Please contact the administrator at your company for more information."
A: No. Salesforce does not enforce any password policies for SSO users. All password policy enforcement — including login attempt limits — must be configured and managed in the SSO gateway.
A: The password will revert to what it was before SSO was enabled. Note that if the previous password had expired during the time the user was utilizing SSO, a password reset may be needed for the user to re-establish their Salesforce password.
A: After disabling SSO, send a password reset to all affected users to ensure they can log in without interruption.
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