Salesforce password reset not working

Solving Salesforce Password Reset Issue

It should come as no surprise that resetting a user's password is the least glamorous part of any Salesforce admin's job. Yes, there is a Salesforce password reset not working link right next to the login button. But for many users it is invisible. But what do you do if a user never received the initial email with a temporary password after setting up the license? What if the user swears that he never received any of the password reset emails from Salesforce? Or what if it's an executive who missed email and now needs to log in? Wouldn't it be great if administrators could set a one time password? Wouldn't it be great to say, I'm going to set up your password for this and you can use it once to log in.

I want you to pause for a second and click here to vote for the "Allow admins to create one-time passwords" idea. Please don't vote for it because it's my idea, that's not why I'm linking to it. Vote it because this skill is required.

Until the day comes when that idea is implemented, we have to find an alternative solution.

Setting a Salesforce User Password

Ok, before you go too far, I want to warn you: there is code involved! Gasp. I know, I know, I am also a verklempt. Talk to each other. But it's not that bad. So that's how we do it.

1. Sign in. Click Your Name | developer console

2. The Developer Console will open and will look like the following screenshot. There's a lot going on here, but we only care about the launch pad at the top.

3. Click "Click here to enter Apex Code" and the following popup will open.

4. Enter the following code, replacing USER ID with the user ID and NEW PASSWORD with the actual text you want to change it to:

5. Click Run

Now this is not the best solution. In fact, I even contemplated blogging about this solution because the administrator really shouldn't know a user's password. What this solution doesn't do is force the user to reset their password once they log in, which I'm having trouble with. But sometimes you need to set a user password and get on with your day. When I posted this idea on Idea Exchange I was also told that you can do this in Workbench as well, for anyone familiar with Workbench I would love for you to write a guest post.