What is Salesforce Optimizer, Salesforce Health Check

What Salesforce Optimizer and Salesforce Health Check mean in an org review

Salesforce Optimizer and Salesforce Health Check are often mentioned together, but they solve different admin problems. Salesforce Optimizer was designed to scan a Salesforce org and show configuration, usage, limit, and technical-debt findings. Salesforce Health Check focuses on security settings and compares your org against the Salesforce Baseline Standard or a custom baseline.

In practical terms, Salesforce Optimizer helps admins ask, “Where is this org becoming hard to maintain?” Salesforce Health Check helps admins ask, “Which security settings need attention?” A complete org review should consider both types of information, but admins should not treat the two tools as interchangeable.

Salesforce Optimizer retirement note for current Salesforce orgs

Salesforce introduced Salesforce Optimizer in the Summer ’17 release, and the screenshots in this tutorial show the original Setup flow. Salesforce has since announced the Salesforce Optimizer App Retirement. If your org still shows Optimizer in Setup, treat it as a legacy admin tool and check Salesforce Help for the current availability in your edition and instance.

For ongoing org maintenance, use Salesforce Health Check for security configuration, Setup pages for limits and usage, and a current technical-debt review process such as Org Check from Salesforce Labs where it fits your governance model. Salesforce Labs projects are useful community resources, but they should be reviewed and tested like any other package before installing them in a production org.

Salesforce Optimizer checks covered in the original report

Salesforce Optimizer scans an organization and determines how your company uses field usage and limits, Apex Triggers, page layouts, record types, validation rules, profiles, sharing, reports, dashboards, workflow rules, storage, and user management settings. The report then groups findings so that admins can identify cleanup work, risk areas, and configuration patterns that may affect adoption or maintainability.

The value of an Optimizer-style report is not only the number of findings. The useful part is the review conversation it starts: which fields are unused, which reports are stale, where custom code uses old API versions, which permissions need review, and where the org has more configuration than users actually need.

Before running Salesforce Optimizer in a legacy org

If Salesforce Optimizer is still available in your org, prepare before you run it. The report can contain sensitive configuration details, so it should be handled like an internal admin document.

• Confirm that you are logged in to the exact Salesforce org you want to review, especially if you work across production and sandboxes.
• Whitelist your organization’s restricted IP addresses if your network policy requires it.
• Verify your email deliverability and user email address so the report notification reaches the right admin.
• Run the report with an admin user who has the required Setup access.
• Plan where the downloaded PDF will be stored, who can view it, and how findings will be tracked.

How to launch Salesforce Optimizer from Setup in the legacy flow

To launch Salesforce Optimizer in the original Setup experience, navigate to Setup | Monitor | Optimizer.

• Click Optimizer. A new page opens where you can start the Salesforce Optimizer scan.

• Click Run Optimizer.
• Review the authorization prompt and allow access only if you understand what information is being requested.

• Click the Allow button to continue with the evaluation.

How to read the Salesforce Optimizer PDF report

After a successful evaluation, Salesforce sends an email notification to the user who ran the scan. The Optimizer PDF report can then be downloaded and shared with the Salesforce admin team, security team, or release owners who need to review the findings.

• Use the report link to download the PDF, review file sharing settings, upload a new version, edit details, or delete the report when it is no longer needed.

The report can be long. In the example above, the Salesforce Optimizer PDF report contains 54 pages. Do not try to fix every item at once. Start with findings that affect security, limits, user access, old automation, stale code, and high-usage objects. Then group the remaining cleanup tasks into a backlog.

Salesforce Optimizer report sections and admin actions

The exact report sections can vary by org and by Salesforce release, but an Optimizer-style review usually covers the following areas.

1. Storage.
   1. File storage limits.
   2. Data storage limits.
   3. Static resource limits.
2. Fields.
   1. Field limits per object.
   2. Field usage per object.
   3. Field usage per page layout.
   4. Number of fields per page layout.
3. Custom code.
   1. Apex triggers per object.
   2. API version.
   3. Fresh code on stale API versions.
   4. Hard-coded URLs per org.
4. Custom layouts for objects.
   1. Page layouts per object.
   2. Unassigned page layouts.
   3. Related lists on page layouts.
   4. Record types per object.
   5. Unassigned record types.
5. Reports and dashboards.
   1. Unused reports.
   2. Unused dashboards.
6. Validation rules.
   1. Active validation rules per object.
   2. Inactive validation rules per org.
7. Sharing rules.
   1. Active sharing rules per object.
8. Workflow rules.
   1. Active workflow rule limits per object.
   2. Inactive workflow rules per org.
9. User management.
   1. Administrator permissions.
   2. User logins.
   3. Unassigned roles.
   4. Unsupported browsers.
10. Profiles and permission sets.
    1. Unassigned custom profiles.
    2. Unassigned permission sets.
    3. Profiles with 10 or fewer users.
    4. Permission sets with 10 or fewer users.
11. Chatter adoption.
    1. Inactive Chatter users.
    2. Incomplete Chatter profiles.
12. Sales Cloud adoption.
    1. Path.
    2. Duplicate management.
13. Service Cloud adoption.
    1. Omni-Channel.
    2. Macros.

For each section, record the finding, business owner, risk level, proposed action, test plan, and release window. This turns the Salesforce Optimizer report from a static PDF into an actionable org cleanup plan.

Salesforce Health Check focuses on security settings, not org cleanup

Salesforce Security Health Check is a Setup tool that shows how closely your org’s security settings align with Salesforce’s recommended baseline or with a custom baseline that your organization uploads. It is not a replacement for every Salesforce Optimizer finding, because it does not review all adoption, reporting, page layout, or technical-debt areas.

Health Check is still one of the first places an admin should review when checking org security. It highlights settings that are compliant, at risk, or informational, and it can guide admins toward stronger password, session, network, and access-related settings.

How to open Salesforce Security Health Check from Setup

• Log in to the Salesforce org that you want to review.
• Go to Setup.
• In the Quick Find box, search for Health Check.
• Open Health Check under Security Settings.
• Review the score, high-risk settings, medium-risk settings, low-risk settings, and informational settings.

Salesforce Trailhead also provides a guided lesson on Health Check in Improve Your Org’s Security with Salesforce Health Check.

How the Salesforce Health Check score should be interpreted

The Salesforce Health Check score is shown from 0 to 100. A higher score means the org’s measured settings are closer to the selected baseline, but the score is not a complete proof that the org is secure. Review the individual settings, understand why each setting is flagged, and confirm changes in a sandbox before applying them in production when the change could affect users or integrations.

Salesforce explains the scoring model in How Is the Health Check Score Calculated?. Organizations with internal security standards can also review Salesforce guidance for custom baselines and align Health Check with their own policy requirements.

What to use after Salesforce Optimizer for org maintenance

Because Salesforce Optimizer is now a legacy path, admins should combine several current review methods instead of depending on one report.

Review need	Recommended Salesforce admin source	What to check
Security configuration	Salesforce Health Check	Baseline score, high-risk settings, session settings, password policies, network settings.
Technical debt and metadata cleanup	Org analysis process or Org Check	Unused metadata, old customizations, object complexity, permissions, Apex and automation indicators.
Storage and limits	Setup usage pages and storage pages	Data storage, file storage, limits that are close to being reached.
Access model review	Profiles, permission sets, roles, sharing settings	Over-permissioned users, unused profiles, external sharing exposure, role hierarchy accuracy.
Automation review	Flow, Apex, validation rules, approval processes	Inactive automation, overlapping automation, stale API versions, business-critical logic.

Prioritizing findings from Salesforce Optimizer and Health Check

A Salesforce org review is useful only when findings lead to safe changes. Use this priority order when converting the report into work items.

• Fix high-risk security settings first. Review Health Check items that expose access, weaken authentication, or reduce session protection.
• Protect integrations before changing settings. Some security improvements can affect connected apps, API users, or login flows.
• Review old automation carefully. Inactive workflow rules, validation rules, and triggers may look safe to delete, but confirm ownership and history before removal.
• Clean up unused fields with data impact in mind. Field usage reports can show low activity, but a field may still be needed for compliance, integrations, or reporting.
• Separate quick wins from release work. Report cleanup, dashboard cleanup, and page layout simplification may be handled differently from permission or code changes.

Salesforce Optimizer and Health Check editorial QA checklist

• Confirm whether Salesforce Optimizer is still available in the target org before presenting the old Setup path as a current feature.
• Keep the distinction clear: Salesforce Optimizer is for org configuration and technical-debt review, while Salesforce Health Check is for security settings.
• Verify Health Check screenshots or instructions against the current Setup menu before publishing internal admin documentation.
• Do not mark a Health Check score as “secure” without reviewing individual high-risk and medium-risk settings.
• Document every Optimizer or Health Check remediation with owner, test evidence, and production release date.

FAQs on Salesforce Optimizer and Salesforce Health Check

Using Salesforce Health Check and org analysis as a regular admin routine

Run Salesforce Health Check as part of a recurring security review, especially after major releases, new integrations, permission changes, or security policy updates. For broader org cleanup, maintain a separate review of unused fields, inactive automation, old reports, stale dashboards, and access model complexity. This combined approach gives admins a clearer view of both Salesforce security posture and long-term maintainability.