Legacy policy prior to February 13, 2026:

The Salesforce platform requires that any active Salesforce user associated with a survey requires a license. In addition, the platform requires a license for any user that views a survey record, any user that creates a report containing survey data, and a user with a system administrator profile to configure Simple Survey. In addition, you will need a single license for the Force.com Site Guest User which covers all external survey respondents.

 

• 1 license is required to be dedicated to the Force.com Site Guest User that is automatically created by Salesforce during the setup process. For example, if you purchase 100 Simple Survey licenses, 99 internal users can trigger surveys to be sent and view the survey responses.
• 1 license is required for a user with a System Administrator profile to configure Simple Survey and use the Survey Builder. More information here.
• Licenses are also required for each active Salesforce user associated with a survey record, which generally includes:
  • Record Owners (who the surveys are about): Custom lookup field to the user, which generally indicates the user surveyed based on ownership of a related case, account, etc.; this is typically the user who triggered a survey to be sent.
    • Example: When surveys are sent off of the Case Object, the Case Owners will need a license.
  • Owners of Simple Survey Records, as defined in the Simple Survey Builder: standard Salesforce system field, which generally would be the Record Owner (above), the Record Owner's manager, or a specific user account.
  • Users for any Custom User Lookup fields you might add and populate in surveys
  • Any user who views survey records, Simple Survey Insights, Snapshot, Reports, and/or Dashboards

 

Note Regarding Automatic License Assignment

To reduce administrative effort, Simple Survey licenses are automatically assigned to users associated with surveys. Starting in version 2.39, each time a new survey record is created, Simple Survey will check to see if the Record Owner associated with the survey has been assigned a license. If they are already licensed, no changes are made. If the Record Owner has not yet been assigned a license, Simple Survey will assign that user a license. Simple Survey does not automatically remove licenses from inactive users. Currently, customers aren’t notified when they’re automatically assigned a Simple Survey license. However, Vicasso receives a notification on our end if there’s an issue assigning a license due to an insufficient number of available licenses and will work to notify our customers.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

I would like to view survey records. Do I need a license for Simple Survey?
Yes, to view records created by Simple Survey, the user who wishes to access the record will need a license. This user will also need at least the Simple Survey Read-Only permission set.
 

When a case is closed, our local automation automatically sends a survey to the customer. The survey is about Lois Lane, the support agent on the case. Does Lois need a license for Simple Survey?
Yes, each active Salesforce user associated with a survey record will need a license for Simple Survey. In this case, Lois Lane with be the Record Owner of the survey. You can configure Simple Survey such that Lois Lane’s manager will be the Owner (standard Salesforce field) of the survey record instead.
 

We want to send a survey to a contact 30 days after they purchase our product. The survey isn’t about a specific user in Salesforce, but rather about the experience of our customer. How does licensing work in this case?
When the related object, either standard or custom, does not have a specific user associated with the survey, you only need a license to view the survey record.
 

What happens to the survey data when the Record Owner on the survey record leaves the company?
If the Record Owner leaves the company and their Salesforce User record is deactivated, existing Survey records will remain intact and continue to be related to the inactive user. It is recommended that the Simple Survey license be removed from the inactive user, freeing up a license record that can be assigned to another user who is triggering new surveys to be sent.
 

I’ve paid for 50 licenses of Simple Survey, but it is showing that I’m using more than 50 licenses. How is that possible?
Each time a new survey record is created, Simple Survey will check to see if the Record Owner associated with the survey has been assigned a license. If the Record Owner has not yet been assigned a license, Simple Survey will assign that user a license. This helps prevent your survey recipients from seeing errors that would result from an unlicensed Record Owner. 

To ensure that licenses can be automatically assigned to end users who require them, even if all purchased licenses have been assigned, Vicasso will provide its customers with a certain number of ‘overflow’ licenses. Having this in place may also help you to have a better understanding of the true license count your organization requires.

 

Sample Organization Licensing

Your organization has 150 people on Salesforce. You want to send two different surveys, one to collect feedback on the experience of your support team, and one to collect feedback on your sales process.

For the support team, there are 24 support agents, 4 managers, and one supervisor on that team. You want to collect metrics on the performance of each support agent in order to reward the ones with the highest average survey score. You create local automation (workflow rule or process builder) to send the survey when a support case closes. The Record Owner field will be the support agent, and if configured this way, the Owner field could be the particular support agent’s manager. Each support agent will need a license (24) as the survey records are related to them. Each manager (4) will need a license to view the appropriate survey records. The supervisor will need a license to view the survey records and create reports using the collected survey data. Based on the above, you will need 29 licenses for the support team.

For the sales team, there are 12 account executives, 3 managers, and one supervisor. You want to collect feedback on the experience with your product. However, you are not asking questions related to the Account Executive. You create local automation (workflow rule or process builder) to send the survey to the customer contact 30 days after the purchase of the product. Only the three managers and one supervisor will be viewing survey records and creating related reports, so each of these people (4) will need a license for Simple Survey to view the data.

Finally, your Salesforce administrator team has 3 people, but only one of those people will be configuring Simple Survey and creating surveys for the support and sales teams. Only one license for that specific user will be required, plus one additional license for the Force.com Site Guest User as required by Salesforce.

• Support Team: 29 licenses (24 agents, 4 managers, 1 supervisor)
• Sales Team: 4 licenses (3 managers, 1 supervisor)
• Salesforce Admin Team: 1 license for the admin configuring and creating surveys
• Force.com Site Guest User: 1 license
• Total Licenses Required: 35 licenses

One last thing to note in this scenario above, if another user of the company wishes to view survey records, Simple Survey will not assign that user a license. Your Salesforce administrator will need to manually assign a license and appropriate permission set to the user who wishes to view survey data.

 

Additional Notes:

• It may appear as though you are missing 1 license. This is due to an anomaly in how Salesforce displays licensed users. The Force.com Site Guest User is not displayed, but the Used Licenses count includes it.
• If a Salesforce user associated with a survey is made inactive, you can safely remove their Simple Survey license with no impact on your historical survey data.

For more information, see "Assigning Licenses for Installed Packages" by clicking on Help & Training at the top of your Salesforce.com account.