Turn on customer invitations at the org level, then create a private group that allows customers and invite the external people. These steps are done by an admin plus a group owner or manager.
- Confirm customer invitations are enabled
In Setup, type Chatter in Quick Find and open Chatter Settings. Check that Allow Customer Invitations is selected. When Chatter is enabled this box is usually on by default, so often you are just confirming it.
- Create or pick a private group and allow customers
Create a Chatter group with access set to private, or open an existing private group you own or manage. Turn on the option that lets the group accept customers. Public groups cannot host customers, so the group must be private.
- Invite the external people by email
On the group detail page, use Invite People or Add or Remove Members. Enter the external email addresses separated by commas and add an optional message, then send. Each new customer receives a welcome email with a unique username and password.
- Remove access when the work ends
When collaboration is done, open Add or Remove Members on the group and remove the customer, and have an admin deactivate the underlying user in Setup. This closes access cleanly so external seats do not linger.
Org-level checkbox in Setup, Chatter Settings. Must be on for any group to invite customers. Enabled by default when Chatter is enabled.
Customers can join private groups only. Set the group to private before enabling customers on it.
Group-level setting the owner or manager turns on so the private group can accept external members.
A customer can be a plain member or a manager. Manager-level customers can approve membership requests for that group.
- Customer invitations do not work with My Domain login URLs, single sign-on domains, or domains that have IP-range restrictions. Orgs using those controls often move to Experience Cloud instead.
- Customers cannot reach your group with an existing Salesforce login. They must use the unique username and password from the welcome email; lost credentials are reset via Forgot Password.
- Access lasts until you remove it. Build an offboarding step, because finished projects otherwise leave external participants in old groups indefinitely.
- Anything referenced in a post, such as a linked record or a mention of a non-member, stays invisible to the customer even when they can read the post itself.