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Set Audit Fields and Update Records with Inactive Owners

Migrating data to Salesforce and mass updating records just got easier. Now you can set audit fields when you create records through the API and update records with inactive owners without contacting Salesforce.
Available in: Developer, Enterprise, Unlimited, and Performance Editions

For some scenarios, you need to set values for fields that aren’t normally editable, for example, when migrating data to Salesforce. In that situation, it’s often preferable to replace the Salesforce record creation date with the date on which the record was created in the original system. Or when working with a record that has an inactive owner, you often want to change ownership of the record to an active owner.

For common objects, we’ve added two user permissions to cover these scenarios, which previously required that you contact Salesforce.
Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation
Set audit fields, such as Created By and Last Modified By, when you create a record (API only).
Update Records with Inactive Owners
Update owner and sharing-based fields on records with inactive owners.

The “Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation” permission is supported for the following objects: Account, ArticleVersion, Attachment, CampaignMember, Case, CaseComment, Contact, ContentVersion, Contract, Event, Idea, IdeaComment, Lead, Opportunity, Question, Task, Vote, and all custom objects.

The “Update Records with Inactive Owners” permission is supported for the following objects: Account, Asset, Case, Contact, Lead, Note, Opportunity, Order, PersonAccount, ServiceContract, SalesTeam, and all custom objects.

Because these permissions give users the power to alter sensitive record data, we’ve placed them behind an organization preference called “Enable Set Audit Fields upon Record Creation and Update Records with Inactive Owners.” To enable the user permissions, first enable the organization preference on the User Interface page. From Setup, enter User Interface in the Quick Find box, then select User Interface. After you enable the organization preference, enable one or both of the user permissions in a permission set or profile. You can set audit fields only in API-enabled editions of Salesforce.

The organization preference defaults to off unless you’ve previously contacted Salesforce to enable the “Create Audit Fields” permission, which the organization preference replaces.