Logging into Essentials requires an active User account from either a Developer Edition org or a Production org (i.e. anything using the standard login.salesforce.com URL). When you log into Copado Essentials for the first time, we create your free User profile (that serves to connect you to your Team) in Copado Essentials and link to your Salesforce account. For paid Essentials licenses, the Org ID serves to link your purchase to our license provisioning system.
Note: Salesforce sandboxes (i.e. anything using the test.salesforce.com URL) cannot be used to log into Essentials because Essentials uses the Production login URL for authentication.
Essentials is specifically designed to provide a secure and streamlined experience for its users through four key functionalities:
Frictionless Onboarding: No separate sign-up is required. User profiles are automatically created via a user's production org after signing in.
Security Maximization: Security is inherited from the sign-in org boundary. Only team members who've signed into the same org can share access with one another. This eliminates the risk of access being shared to individuals outside of the user's company.
Automatic Deprovisioning: If a team member leaves an organization, their Essentials account will be automatically deprovisioned because it inherits Salesforce's account. This prevents unauthorized access of ex-employees or contractors.
Automatic Invitation: As teams are automatically grouped, there is no need to send invitations to join a team. A new user becomes part of a team automatically based on their sign-in org.
Minimum Permissions & License Types
There are no absolute minimum permissions required to create a User in Copado Essentials. As long as a user possesses valid credentials to sign in to a Salesforce org, they can successfully create a user account in Essentials. You can use any Salesforce license type including standard, platform user, or Chatter Free.
Tip: Developer Edition orgs provide up to 5,000 Chatter Free licenses, making this a very affordable authentication option for your development team.
Make sure you pick a Salesforce account that you're likely to remember and use the same account for your subsequent logins.
Restricting Deployment Access (Non-Deploying Admins or Developers)
If you need to grant a User access to Essentials without giving them the ability to deploy to specific environments (like UAT or Production), you can use a workflow similar to what is shown below:
Salesforce License: Create a Chatter Free account (or similar license with minimal permissions) for the User. This allows them to sign in to Essentials without inherent deployment rights to your environments.
Access Control: The Essentials Team Owner must then use Org Sharing to specifically control which environments the developer is allowed to validate against or deploy to.