It’s happened to all of us: you get to the office, get your coffee, make a little small talk about what your coworker did last night, and then go to log in and get to work, absolutely sure that you’re using the correct Salesforce password. It doesn’t work, so you try it again. And again. Then you are locked out. Now you have to email your admin, maybe feeling embarrassed, frustrated, angry, or all three.
Here are a couple of tips that will lessen your desire to snap your keyboard in half.
Remember the Three Attempt Rule
Remember that you get three invalid login attempts before you’re locked out of Salesforce for an hour. There was a time when many more login attempts were allowed. Best practices have reduced attempts to three to provide a higher level of security. Personally, if I enter mine incorrectly twice, I click the “forgot password” link and reset it. Annoying, yes, but it beats being locked out for an hour if your admin happens to be busy.
Save Your Salesforce Password in a Password Vault
Use Lastpass! LastPass is an online password vault that’s easy to use. Simply remember one password to open your vault, and LastPass remembers the umpteen other passwords you have for websites, apps, portals, and platforms. It also periodically generates new, very secure passwords so you can stop using “I_heart_ForceMedic”.
You can even add the LastPass extension to your browser and access your vault directly from a login screen. Just click on the dot-and-cursor icon to the right to open LastPass in a new tab.
There is even a LastPass app for iPhone and Android! If you need to log in to something on your phone or iPad and don’t happen to have your trusty password sticky note with you, LastPass recognizes your face or fingerprint and logs you right in.
I was skeptical about using LastPass and avoided it for as long as I could. Now, I can’t even think of not having it. Plus, the time spent to get it up and running was far less than I had anticipated.
Believe me: LastPass is not paying me to write this. They just make an excellent product that helps me manage my Salesforce Password (and my other passwords) conveniently and securely. I agree that getting locked out of Salesforce is annoying and disruptive to work, but LastPass will help. And I doubt you’ll find anyone who uses it and doesn’t like it.
No More Lockouts!
We get it- stuff happens. Sometimes even the best of us forget a password or make a typo at login. But, with the failed attempt limit in mind and some help from a password vault, there’s no reason to ever get locked out of Salesforce again.
