Mass update User licenses with Data Loader

This article explains why the User License field can't be updated directly with Data Loader, and how to mass update licenses by updating each User's Profile instead.

Why This Works This Way

If you review the SOAP API documentation for the User object, you will notice that the license associated with a User cannot be selected when you work with the User object.

Instead, you can use Data Loader to associate a profile with the desired Users. Since every Profile is tied to a license, updating the profile associated with a User will also update the license.

Steps to Mass Update Licenses

1. Create a list of the User IDs that you would like to update.
   • Use Data Loader to query the User object. Include the ID and any columns useful in identifying the desired Users (such as First Name and Last Name).
   • Run a report on the User object, and include the Salesforce ID.
2. Get the profile ID in which you're assigning the User.
   • Use Data Loader to query the Profile object. Include ID and any columns useful in identifying the desired profiles (such as Name).
   • If you're associating one or two profiles to multiple Users, navigate to the profile in the user interface and copy the ID from the URL.
3. Create a CSV (comma delimited) file that contains two columns:
   • Id - the ID of the Users to be updated
   • ProfileID - the ID of the new profile to be assigned
4. Use Data Loader to perform an update on the User object.
   • See: Insert, Update, or Delete Data Using Data Loader

Once the new profile is assigned, the User will automatically be changed to the license associated with that profile.

Important Note: License Downgrades

It is not possible to downgrade user licenses. Review Change a User License from Chatter to Salesforce and check this idea: Capacity to change Existing User Licence to Chatter Free.

The following video demonstrates how to mass update User licenses using Data Loader, including how to export User IDs, query Profile IDs, prepare a CSV file, and run the update operation on the User object.