The Basics of Salesforce Administration

Welcome to the start of a comprehensive series on Salesforce Administration. Whether you’ve just been handed the keys to your company’s Salesforce org or you’re studying for the Salesforce Administrator certification, this is where we lay the groundwork. Everything we cover in future sections — objects, security, automation, reporting — builds on what you learn here.

Let’s get into it.

What is a Salesforce Administrator?

A Salesforce Administrator (often just called a “Salesforce Admin”) is the person responsible for keeping a Salesforce org running smoothly. Think of it as a combination of system administrator, business analyst, and configuration specialist — all rolled into one.

Core responsibilities include:

• User management — Creating users, assigning licenses, resetting passwords, managing permissions
• Data management — Ensuring data quality, handling imports/exports, managing duplicates
• Configuration — Building objects, fields, page layouts, record types, and validation rules without writing code
• Automation — Setting up Flows, approval processes, and other automated business processes
• Security — Configuring profiles, permission sets, sharing rules, and record access
• Reporting — Building reports and dashboards that give stakeholders the insights they need
• Support — Being the first point of contact when users have issues or need new functionality

What a Salesforce Admin is NOT:

• A developer — Admins work with declarative (clicks-not-code) tools. Developers write Apex and LWC.
• A project manager — Though admins often gather requirements and manage small enhancements
• An IT helpdesk — Though you’ll inevitably field “I can’t log in” tickets

The best Salesforce Admins I’ve worked with share a few traits: they’re deeply curious about the platform, they understand the business processes they’re supporting, and they know when to solve something with configuration versus when to escalate to a developer.

The Certification Path

If you’re pursuing formal certification, the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam covers everything in this series. The exam is 60 multiple-choice questions, 105 minutes, and requires a 65% passing score. It’s a foundational cert that opens doors to more advanced credentials like Advanced Administrator, Platform App Builder, and eventually the architect track.

How to Navigate the Salesforce Lightning UI

Lightning Experience is Salesforce’s modern user interface, and it’s what you’ll spend 95% of your time in. Let’s walk through the key areas.

The App Launcher

The App Launcher (the grid icon in the top-left corner, or the waffle icon) is your gateway to everything in Salesforce. Click it to see:

• Apps — Pre-built collections of tabs and functionality (e.g., Sales, Service, Marketing)
• Items — Individual objects, tabs, and utilities you can search for directly

Pro tip: Instead of clicking through menus, just type what you’re looking for in the App Launcher search bar. Need the Account object? Type “Account.” Need Setup? Type “Setup.” It’s the fastest way to navigate.

The Navigation Bar

At the top of any app, you’ll see a horizontal navigation bar with tabs. These represent the objects and pages available in the current app. You can:

• Click a tab to go to that object’s list view
• Click the dropdown arrow on a tab to see recent records and favorites
• Right-click a tab to open in a new browser tab (genuinely useful when comparing records)
• Click the pencil icon at the end of the nav bar to customize which tabs appear (per-app, per-user)

The Global Search Bar

The search bar at the top center is Global Search. It searches across all objects and returns results grouped by object type. A few things to know:

• Search is near-real-time but not instant — newly created records may take a few minutes to appear in search results (this uses a search index, not a direct database query)
• You can filter results by object type using the sidebar
• You can use search operators: "exact phrase", field:value (in some contexts)
• The search looks at name fields and certain indexed fields, not every field on every record

Setup — The Admin’s Home

Setup is where all administration happens. Access it by clicking the gear icon in the top-right corner and selecting “Setup.” This opens the Setup home page in a new tab.

The Setup interface has three key areas:

1. Quick Find (left sidebar search) — This is your best friend. Instead of navigating through nested menus, type what you’re looking for. Need to manage users? Type “Users.” Need to check sharing settings? Type “Sharing.” Quick Find searches all Setup menu items.

2. Object Manager — Access this from the top navigation within Setup. It’s a centralized place to manage all standard and custom objects, their fields, page layouts, record types, validation rules, and triggers.

3. Setup Tree (left sidebar) — The hierarchical menu organized into categories like Administration, Platform Tools, Settings, etc. Useful for browsing when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for.

Key Navigation Shortcuts

How and When to Navigate to the Salesforce Classic UI

Despite Lightning being the standard, Salesforce Classic — the older UI — still has its uses. Some features and settings are only available in Classic, and you’ll occasionally need to switch.

How to Switch to Classic

1. Click your profile avatar (top-right corner)
2. Select “Switch to Salesforce Classic”
3. To switch back: click your name in the Classic header → “Switch to Lightning Experience”

When You Might Need Classic

• Some Setup pages haven’t been fully migrated to Lightning (e.g., certain email template editors, some legacy automation tools)
• Workflow Rules and Process Builder — while these are being retired in favor of Flows, existing orgs may still have them, and they’re easier to view/edit in Classic
• Certain AppExchange packages — older managed packages may have configuration pages that only work in Classic
• Email templates (Classic templates) — Lightning has its own email template system, but Classic HTML/Visualforce templates are still widely used
• Debugging — Sometimes a bug only reproduces in one UI and not the other

Important Differences Between Classic and Lightning

My recommendation: Live in Lightning, visit Classic only when you must. Salesforce is actively deprecating Classic features, and any new development should target Lightning.

The Difference Between Sandboxes and Your Production Org

This is a concept that trips up new admins. Understanding it early will save you from making costly mistakes.

Production Org

Your production org is the live environment where your company’s real data lives and real users work. This is the “source of truth.” Every change you make here immediately affects your users.

Rules for production:

• Never experiment directly in production
• Never test new configurations in production
• Never import test data into production
• Treat production as sacred

Sandboxes

A sandbox is a copy of your production org that you use for development, testing, and training. Changes made in a sandbox don’t affect production until you explicitly deploy them.

Types of sandboxes:

Key concepts:

• Metadata = Configuration (objects, fields, page layouts, Apex code, Flows, etc.)
• Data = Records (actual Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, etc.)
• Refresh = Replacing the sandbox with a fresh copy from production. This destroys everything currently in the sandbox.
• Deployment = Moving metadata changes from a sandbox to production (via Change Sets, Salesforce CLI, or DevOps Center)

The Ideal Workflow

Developer Sandbox → Developer Pro / Partial Copy (QA) → Full Copy (UAT/Staging) → Production

1. Build and configure in a Developer sandbox
2. Test with realistic data in a Partial Copy sandbox
3. Run User Acceptance Testing (UAT) in a Full Copy sandbox
4. Deploy to Production once approved

Never skip the testing stages. A misconfigured Flow or a bad validation rule in production can lock users out of creating records, corrupt data, or break integrations.

How to Set Up a Sandbox Org or a Scratch Org

Setting Up a Sandbox

1. Navigate to Setup → Sandboxes (Quick Find: “Sandboxes”)
2. Click “New Sandbox”
3. Enter a name (keep it short — it gets appended to usernames, e.g., john.doe@company.com.devsandbox)
4. Select the sandbox type (Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, or Full Copy)
5. For Partial Copy sandboxes, select a Sandbox Template that defines which data to include
6. Click “Create”

Sandbox creation takes time — Developer sandboxes are usually ready in minutes, but Full Copy sandboxes of large orgs can take hours or even days.

To log into a sandbox:

• URL: test.salesforce.com (not login.salesforce.com)
• Username: Your production username + .sandboxname (e.g., john.doe@company.com.devsandbox)
• Password: Same as production (unless you changed it in the sandbox)

Setting Up a Scratch Org

Scratch orgs are temporary, disposable Salesforce environments used primarily by developers who follow a source-driven development model. Unlike sandboxes, scratch orgs aren’t copies of production — they’re created from a configuration file.

Prerequisites:

• Salesforce CLI installed (sf command)
• A Dev Hub enabled in your production org (Setup → Dev Hub → Enable)
• Authenticated to your Dev Hub via CLI: sf org login web --set-default-dev-hub

To create a scratch org:

1. Create a config/project-scratch-def.json file:

{
  "orgName": "My Scratch Org",
  "edition": "Developer",
  "features": ["EnableSetPasswordInApi"],
  "settings": {
    "lightningExperienceSettings": {
      "enableS1DesktopEnabled": true
    }
  }
}

2. Run: sf org create scratch --definition-file config/project-scratch-def.json --set-default --duration-days 7

3. Open it: sf org open

Sandbox vs. Scratch Org:

What is “Company Information” and How to Set It Up

Company Information is the foundational configuration page for your Salesforce org. It defines who your company is, where it’s located, what currency it uses, and more.

Navigate to: Setup → Company Information (Quick Find: “Company Information”)

Key Fields to Configure

Organization Details:

• Company Name — Your organization’s name as it appears in the system
• Default Locale — Controls date format, number format, and name display order (e.g., English (India) uses DD/MM/YYYY)
• Default Language — The language for the Salesforce UI for new users
• Default Time Zone — Applied to new users; critical for timestamp display and scheduled jobs
• Currency Locale — Determines the currency symbol and format

Address and Contact:

• Primary contact information for your organization
• Used in some automated communications and legal contexts

Fiscal Year:

• Fiscal Year Start Month — If your company’s fiscal year doesn’t start in January, set it here
• This affects reporting periods, forecasting, and financial dashboards
• Choose between Standard (same structure every year) and Custom fiscal years

Important: Changing the fiscal year after data has been created can cause significant reporting issues. Set it correctly from the start.

Organization Limits (visible on this page)

Scroll down on the Company Information page to see:

• API Request Limit — How many API calls your org can make per 24-hour period
• User License Count — Total licenses purchased vs. used
• Data Storage — Total and used data storage
• File Storage — Total and used file storage
• Sandbox Count — By type, how many you’re allowed vs. how many are active

This is the first place to check when you hit a limit error.

How to Set Up an Org for Multiple Languages and Time Zones

If your company operates globally, you’ll need to support multiple languages and time zones.

Enabling Multiple Languages

1. Setup → Translation Workbench → Translation Settings (Quick Find: “Translation Settings”)
2. Click “Enable”
3. Once enabled, you can add supported languages from the Translation Language Settings page

How Languages Work in Salesforce

There are three levels of language support:

1. Fully Supported Languages — Salesforce UI is fully translated (labels, buttons, help text). Examples: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Hindi
2. End-User Languages — UI is translated but Help documentation may not be. Examples: many regional languages
3. Platform-Only Languages — Only custom labels and translations you provide; the standard UI remains in a supported language

Per-User Language Settings: Each user can set their own language in Settings → My Personal Information → Language. This changes the Salesforce UI language for that user only.

What you need to translate yourself:

• Custom field labels
• Custom object names
• Picklist values
• Custom button and link labels
• Custom error messages and validation rules
• Page layout section headers

These are managed through the Translation Workbench (we’ll cover this in depth in a later section).

Managing Time Zones

Each user in Salesforce has their own time zone setting. Here’s how it works:

• Org Default Time Zone — Set in Company Information. Applied to new users automatically.
• User Time Zone — Each user can override this in their personal settings.
• How timestamps work — Salesforce stores all datetime values in UTC internally. When a user views a record, the timestamp is converted to their local time zone. This means:
  • A record created at 3:00 PM IST will show as 3:00 PM for a user in India, but 9:30 AM for a user in the UK (during GMT), and 4:30 AM for a user in New York (EST)
  • Date fields (without time) are NOT time-zone-aware — they show the same date regardless of user location
  • DateTime fields ARE time-zone-aware

Common gotcha: Scheduled Flows, reports, and dashboards run based on the running user’s time zone or the org default. If your scheduled report runs at “8:00 AM” and the running user is in PST, it runs at 8:00 AM PST, not 8:00 AM for every user viewing it.

How to View the Storage Limits in Your Org

Salesforce charges for storage, and running out of it can literally stop your users from creating new records. Monitoring storage is a critical admin task.

Checking Storage

Method 1: Company Information Page Setup → Company Information → Scroll to the “Storage Usage” section at the bottom.

Method 2: Storage Usage Page Setup → Storage Usage (Quick Find: “Storage Usage”). This gives you a detailed breakdown.

Types of Storage

Data Storage — Stores records (Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, custom objects, etc.)

• Each record consumes approximately 2 KB of data storage
• Standard objects and custom objects both count
• Some objects are exempt (e.g., Chatter Feed Items, certain system objects)

File Storage — Stores attachments, files, documents, and content

• Attachments and files consume their actual file size
• Content Versions (Salesforce Files) count toward file storage
• Static resources count toward file storage

Storage Allocation

Storage allocation depends on your edition and number of licenses:

Example: An Enterprise org with 100 users gets 10 GB base + (100 × 20 MB) = 12 GB of data storage.

What Happens When You Run Out

• Users cannot create new records
• Integrations that create records will fail
• Imports will be rejected
• You’ll start getting frantic Slack messages from your sales team

Storage Management Tips

1. Audit regularly — Check storage usage monthly
2. Archive old data — Use Data Loader to export and delete old records (closed Cases older than 2 years, etc.)
3. Manage file attachments — Large files consume storage quickly. Consider integrating with external storage (SharePoint, Google Drive)
4. Watch for integration bloat — Integrations that create logging records or staging records can silently fill your storage
5. Big Objects — For truly large datasets, consider Salesforce Big Objects, which don’t count against standard storage limits
6. Delete unused records — Old debug logs, email message records, and API event logs can accumulate

How to Set the Org’s UI Settings

UI Settings control how the Salesforce interface behaves for all users in your org.

Navigate to: Setup → User Interface (Quick Find: “User Interface”)

Key Settings to Review

General Settings:

• Enable Collapsible Sections — Lets users collapse and expand page layout sections. Recommended: ON
• Show Quick Create — Adds a quick-create form on list view pages in Classic. Lightning has its own create flow, so this mainly affects Classic users
• Enable Hover Details — Shows record details on hover without clicking into the record. Recommended: ON
• Enable Inline Editing — Lets users edit fields directly on list views and record detail pages without entering edit mode. Recommended: ON (huge time-saver)
• Enable Enhanced Lists — Richer list view functionality. Recommended: ON

Sidebar Settings (Classic):

• Enable/disable the Classic sidebar
• These have no effect in Lightning

Calendar Settings:

• Enable Home Page Hover Links for Events — Shows event details on hover in the calendar
• Enable Drag-and-Drop Editing on Calendar Views — Lets users drag events to reschedule

Setup Settings:

• Enable Enhanced Profile List Views — Shows profiles in a list with sorting/filtering
• Enable Enhanced Profile User Interface — Better profile editing experience. Strongly recommended: ON
• Enable Streaming API — Required for real-time event-driven integrations and some platform features

Lightning-Specific Settings

For Lightning-specific UI configuration, check:

• Setup → Lightning App Builder — For customizing record pages
• Setup → Themes and Branding — For visual customization
• Setup → Density Settings — Control compact vs. comfortable spacing

How to Set the Theme and Branding of Your Org

Customizing your org’s look and feel helps with user adoption and makes it clear which environment users are in (critical when you have sandboxes).

Navigate to: Setup → Themes and Branding (Quick Find: “Themes and Branding”)

What You Can Customize

1. Brand Color — The primary color used for the header, buttons, and links. Set this to your company’s brand color.
2. Page Background — The background color of the main content area
3. Header Logo — Upload your company logo to replace the Salesforce logo in the header. Recommended size: 200×50 px (or similar aspect ratio), transparent PNG
4. Loading Page Logo — The logo shown while Salesforce loads. Square format recommended: 150×150 px

Creating Custom Themes

1. Click “New Theme”
2. Give it a name (e.g., “Acme Corp Brand”)
3. Set your brand color, upload logos
4. Set custom page background and link colors if needed
5. Click “Save” and then “Activate”

Sandbox Branding — A Critical Best Practice

Always use distinct branding for each sandbox. This prevents the terrifying mistake of making changes in production when you think you’re in a sandbox.

My approach:

• Production — Company brand colors (e.g., blue)
• Full Copy / UAT — Yellow/amber header with a logo that says “UAT”
• QA Sandbox — Orange header with “QA” label
• Developer Sandbox — Red header with “DEV” label

This costs nothing and has saved countless admins from catastrophic mistakes.

How to Set Your Org’s Business Hours

Business Hours define your company’s operating schedule. They’re used by multiple Salesforce features to calculate response times, escalation rules, and service level agreements.

Navigate to: Setup → Business Hours (Quick Find: “Business Hours”)

Setting Up Business Hours

1. Click “New Business Hours” (or edit the default)
2. Name — Give it a descriptive name (e.g., “India Business Hours”, “US East Coast Hours”)
3. Time Zone — The time zone these hours apply to
4. Active — Check this box to make it available for use
5. Business Hours — For each day of the week, set the start and end time, or mark the day as not a business day

Where Business Hours Are Used

• Case Escalation Rules — “Escalate if not responded within 4 business hours”
• Entitlement Processes — SLA milestones calculated against business hours
• Milestone Tracking — Service Cloud milestone calculations
• Flow Scheduling — Some scheduled flows can reference business hours

Holiday Calendar

Business Hours support Holidays — days when business hours don’t apply.

1. Setup → Holidays (Quick Find: “Holidays”)
2. Click “New”
3. Enter the holiday name, date, and whether it recurs annually
4. Go back to your Business Hours configuration and associate the holiday with the relevant business hours set

Example: If you set Republic Day (January 26) as a holiday and associate it with “India Business Hours,” then SLA calculations using those business hours will skip January 26.

Multiple Business Hours Sets

If your company operates in multiple regions, create separate Business Hours sets for each:

• “India Business Hours” — Mon-Sat, 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM IST
• “US Business Hours” — Mon-Fri, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM EST
• “UK Business Hours” — Mon-Fri, 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM GMT

Assign the appropriate set to Cases, Entitlements, or other records based on the customer’s region.

Section Notes

A few things to remember from this section:

• Setup Quick Find is your best friend. Don’t memorize where settings live — just type what you need. You’ll find it faster than navigating the menu tree.
• Always use sandboxes. No matter how small the change feels, test it in a sandbox first. “I’ll just make this one quick change in production” is the beginning of every Salesforce horror story.
• Company Information is foundational. Set the locale, language, time zone, currency, and fiscal year correctly before you start configuring anything else. Changing these later can have cascading effects on existing data and reports.
• Storage management is ongoing. Don’t wait until you hit the limit. Set up a monthly check or a dashboard that tracks storage trends.
• Brand your sandboxes. It takes 2 minutes and prevents the worst admin mistakes.
• Business Hours are more important than they seem. If your company uses Service Cloud at all, getting business hours right from the start will save you headaches when you configure escalation rules and SLAs later.

Project: Create and Set Up a Fictional Company’s Org

Time to practice. Here’s a hands-on project to reinforce everything in this section.

The Scenario

Meridian Analytics Pvt. Ltd. is a data analytics consulting firm based in Pune, India, with a satellite office in London, UK. They have:

• 45 employees total: 30 in Pune, 15 in London
• Fiscal year starts April 1 (Indian financial year)
• Operating hours: Pune office Mon-Sat 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM IST, London office Mon-Fri 9:00 AM - 5:30 PM GMT
• Holidays: Standard Indian holidays for Pune, UK bank holidays for London
• Languages needed: English (primary), Hindi (for some internal users)
• Currency: INR (primary), GBP (secondary)

Your Tasks

1. Set up a Developer Edition org (if you don’t already have one)
2. Configure Company Information:
   • Set the company name, address, and contact details
   • Set the default locale to English (India)
   • Set the default time zone to (GMT+05:30) India Standard Time
   • Set the fiscal year to start in April (standard fiscal year)
3. Configure Languages:
   • Enable the Translation Workbench
   • Add Hindi as a supported language
4. Set up Business Hours:
   • Create “Pune Business Hours” (Mon-Sat, 9 AM - 6 PM IST)
   • Create “London Business Hours” (Mon-Fri, 9 AM - 5:30 PM GMT)
   • Add at least 3 holidays for each (Republic Day, Holi, Diwali for Pune; New Year, Easter Monday, Christmas for London)
5. Configure Theme and Branding:
   • Set a brand color of your choice
   • Upload a logo (create a simple one with any design tool or use a placeholder)
6. Check Storage:
   • Navigate to the Storage Usage page and note the current allocation
   • Screenshot or document: How much data storage do you have? How much file storage?
7. Explore the UI:
   • Navigate to at least 5 different Setup pages using Quick Find
   • Find and open the Object Manager
   • Switch to Salesforce Classic and back to Lightning

Complete these steps in your Developer org. In the next section, we’ll dive into managing users — creating them, assigning licenses, and controlling their access.

This is Part 2 of the Salesforce series. Next up: Users in Salesforce — creating users, managing passwords, proxy login, and understanding how license assignments shape what your users can do.