A login record is not proof of a human.
Read user licences, add-on entitlements and login history together. Login type and application context help distinguish automated activity from human sessions; the available history still has retention limits.
User licences and additional entitlements
Review both user licences and permission-set licences. Additional entitlements may be included or separately charged, so match assignments to the order form before pricing findings.
| Seat / licence class | What it is | Billable |
|---|---|---|
| Salesforce (full CRM) | The standard full-platform user licence — Sales or Service Cloud, by edition | Yes |
| Salesforce Platform | Custom-app access with limited standard capabilities; verify the exact SKU against every required workflow | Yes |
| Permission-set licences | Additional entitlements with separate assignment records; commercial treatment depends on the SKU | Varies |
| Feature licences | Entitlements such as support-user access, enabled per user and often left on after the role changed | Varies |
| Salesforce Integration | API-only licence intended for system integrations, included in limited quantities with some editions; additional quantities may be paid | Varies |
| Chatter Free / Chatter External | Collaboration-only access with no CRM object entitlement | No |
| Identity | Identity capabilities; check purchased and included quantities against the agreement | Varies |
Licence classes and their entitlements vary by edition and by contract. The free classes matter as much as the billable ones: a recommendation that proposes removing a licence which costs nothing is the fastest way to lose a CFO's confidence in the whole analysis.
The evidence is rich. That is exactly why it misleads.
Salesforce exposes last-login information and retained login history. Standard login-history downloads cover the past six months; longer claims need additional retained evidence.
Classify authentication before judging usage
Integration users, refresh-token grants and connected apps generate login records continuously. A seat serving an integration shows recent activity every day while no person has opened it in a year. The contrast has to be shown, not assumed.
Orphaned add-ons are a set difference
An unmatched permission-set licence is a review candidate. Check effective permissions, groups, feature requirements and the commercial SKU before proposing removal.
Downgrade candidacy is advisory, not certain
A full-CRM user who has authored no records across the standard objects in twelve months is a Platform candidate. That is a strong signal and still a recommendation, not a promise — mid-term reclassification is contractually hard, and we say so.
Six findings, ranked by how hard they are to argue with
No login observed in available evidence
Check the user creation date, retained history and other activity evidence. Missing login records alone do not establish lifetime non-use.
Purchased but unassigned
Licences bought and never allocated to anyone. Pure arithmetic against the assignment count — no interpretation required, and frequently a surprise to the org that bought them.
Deactivated user still holding an add-on
A permission-set licence still assigned to a deactivated user. You are paying for entitlements attached to somebody who has left the company.
Orphaned add-on licence
Review add-on assignments with no matching capability found in the permission analysis. Validate effective access and business need before removing them.
No human login in the window
The differentiated finding. Zero human sessions across the measurement window, presented alongside the machine-login contrast that explains why the seat appeared active on every other report.
Tier and feature downgrade candidates
Full-CRM users with no authored records on standard objects, and feature licences enabled for users doing none of the work they entitle. Advisory, labelled as such, priced separately from the certain findings.
Walk in with proof
Stage 00 is a 30-minute qualifying call at no cost. If the timing or the estate does not justify an engagement, we say so on that call.