Is Setup with Agentforce Ready for Prime Time?
Salesforce keeps pushing AI deeper into the platform. Setup with Agentforce is the latest example. It promises a conversational way for admins to explore setup configurations, get security recommendations, and manage their Org, all without digging through menus.
The pitch is simple. Ask a question in plain language and let Agentforce guide you through the answer, or take action on your behalf. It’s Salesforce’s own alternative to using a tool like Claude to interpret setup screens and suggest changes.
But promise and execution are two different things. I wanted to see how Setup with Agentforce performs in a real production Org, not a demo sandbox. So I activated it in an Org running Foundations, Data Cloud, and Agentforce, and put it to work on two topics every admin cares about right now: security health and MFA compliance.
Is Setup with Agentforce ready to replace manual setup work? Here is what I found.
How to Activate Setup with Agentforce
Setup with Agentforce requires a permission set that in not readily available in Salesforce Orgs.
If you go to setup home you will see a Setup with Agentforce callout box on top of the page. If you follow that link, you will see that the setup requires for this permission set to be created and assigned.
Here is what you see on the on the Setup with Agentforce configuration page:
Configure Setup with Agentforce
Step 1: Grant Access – Assign the required permissions so you and your team can use Setup with Agentforce. The agent won’t be usable until these permissions are assigned.
Step 2: Agent Availability – Control whether the agent is available for Setup tasks. When enabled, the agent can guide you through tasks or take action for you in Setup. If permissions aren’t assigned, the agent won’t be usable.
Step 3: Enhanced Conversation Recommendations (Optional) – Get more personalized conversation recommendations from Agentforce in Setup by letting us learn from your Salesforce activity. This setting consumes additional Data 360 credits. Learn More in Help
Step 4: Use Setup with Agentforce – Refresh the page, then start a conversation from Setup Home or any Setup page.”
Creating the Permission Set
To create the permission set:
- Go to permission sets under setup
- Create a permission set titled Agentforce with Setup
- Go to System Settings. Edit the System Settings.
- Find “Use Setup with Agentforce” and check the corresponding checkbox.
- Save the permission set and go to manage assignments.
- Add the users who will use the feature and save.
Click here for the link that describes this process on Salesforce Help.
Getting Started with Setup with Agentforce
When you go through the next steps for Setup with Agentforce to be activated, you will see an Agentforce natural language input box on your setup page.
On the very same page there are callouts for the security health assessment of the Org. As most of you know, the new MFA requirements are being rolled out, so there is also a message in the Org about that. I decided to try out the new feature to help with these two topics. Let’s see how it went.
Can Setup with Agentforce Help with Activating Security Features?
I asked: “What is my org’s Security Health check score?”
Agentforce answered: “Your org’s Security Health Check score is 60% (Poor). Would you like to understand how the score is calculated or review your org’s security settings?”
Right below that answer I see Agentforce’s recommendations for a follow up question:
Recommendations
• I would like to understand how the score is calculated.
• Give me my Org security status
I did not ask one of the recommended questions, instead:
I asked: “Give me actions that I need to complete to increase my score. Start with the low hanging fruits.”
Agentforce gave me a list of actions divided by risk categories. So far so good.
I wrote: “Enable Force relogin after Login-As-User. Terminate all of a user’s sessions when admin resets passwords – enable that. Require 1-day password lifetime. Thanks”
Agentforce wrote: “I couldn’t find direct links or documentation for enabling these settings. However, you can navigate to Setup in Salesforce and search for the following settings to enable them:
1. Force relogin after Login-As-User: Look for “Session Settings” in Setup.
2. Terminate all of a user’s sessions when an admin resets passwords: Search for “Session Settings” in Setup.
3. Require a 1-day password lifetime: Search for “Password Policies” in Setup.
Would you like further assistance with these steps?”
I thought: “If Agentforce can not do these things for me what is it’s advantage over Claude, for example?”
Is Setup with Agentforce Sufficient Delivering An MFA Analysis?
I was not satisfied with the outcome of my previous interaction with Agentforce. I decided to try something else.
Security is top of mind for most admins nowadays. Let me ask Agentforce to help with that.
I wrote: “Do I have any view all modify all permissions on any user in this Org?”
Agentforce wrote: “You have both ‘View All Data’ and ‘Modify All Data’ permissions in this org. Let me know if you need further assistance.”
Agentforce also showed me an infocard right below this line displaying my user’s permissions.
I asked: “Just Andy Engin Utkan, or do I have more users with similar elevated access?”
Agentforce responded: “I couldn’t retrieve the list of users with ‘View All Data’ or ‘Modify All Data’ permissions. You might want to refine your query or check permissions manually. Let me know if you’d like assistance with something else!”
I was not satisfied with that answer. I asked: “Do I have any users in this Org logging in without using MFA?”
Agentforce answered:
“Here is the summary of login attempts grouped by status. Let me know if you need further details.
731 login attempts occurred. Here are the login attempts by Status: Success 728 / Multi-factor required 3”
I did not know what to do with that information. I asked: “Do all users in this Org have MFA required setting on?
Agentforce answered: “It seems there are no users without the MFA required setting enabled, or the field to check this setting isn’t available in the User schema. Let me know if you need further assistance.”
I reached another dead end.
Have You Tried Setup with Agentforce?
Setup with Agentforce shows promise, but it’s not ready to replace manual admin work. It can answer surface-level questions and pull basic data. It cannot take meaningful action, dig deeper into complex queries, or replace the judgment an experienced admin brings to security decisions. Every dead end I hit points to the same conclusion. This feature launched before it was fully baked.
That does not mean you should ignore it. Early feedback shapes how Salesforce improves these tools. Test it in your own Org, push it with real questions, and report back what works and what does not. The more admins who do this now, the faster Setup with Agentforce becomes something we can actually rely on.
Drop a comment below with your own experience. Did it help you close security gaps, or did you hit the same walls I did? Let’s compare notes and help Salesforce build something better.
Explore related content:
Headless 360: Build an Agentforce Agent Using Natural Language
