Building an Experience Cloud site is a multi-week to multi-month project depending on customization depth. The work spans template selection, page design, sharing configuration, authentication, branding, and content authoring. Plan carefully because rebuilding mid-project is expensive.
- Identify the audience and use cases
Who logs into the site? What do they need to do? Customers checking Cases, partners registering Leads, employees collaborating internally. Each audience drives a different template and license choice.
- Enable Experience Cloud and create the site
Setup > Digital Experiences > Settings > Enable. Then All Sites > New > pick a template. Provide a URL path and friendly name. The template determines the starting page set.
- Configure user licenses and authentication
Decide on Customer Community, Customer Community Plus, Partner Community, or External Apps License. Configure authentication: username/password with MFA, SAML SSO, OpenID Connect, or social login. Set up the login page.
- Build the page structure in Experience Builder
Open Experience Builder. Add pages, configure the navigation menu, and assemble pages from Lightning Components. Customize the Theme Layout to match the brand. Set up object pages for each sObject that external users should access.
- Configure sharing for external users
Build Sharing Sets, Account-based sharing rules, or other sharing mechanisms appropriate to the use case. Test access carefully because too-permissive sharing leaks data; too-restrictive sharing breaks the user experience.
- Customize branding and content
Upload logos, configure color palettes, customize the CSS overrides through Experience Builder. Author Knowledge articles or pull from Salesforce CMS. Build the navigation menu, footer links, and any custom landing pages.
- Test as external users
Create test external user accounts. Log in as each persona and verify the experience: navigation works, data is visible, forms submit correctly, sharing matches expectation. Test on desktop and mobile.
- Activate and promote
Activate the site through Experience Builder. Configure the custom domain (DNS, SSL certificate) so users access via your brand''s domain rather than the Salesforce default. Promote to existing customers, partners, or employees.
Customer Service, Partner Central, Help Center, or Build Your Own. Drives initial page set and component library.
Customer Community, Customer Community Plus, Partner Community, External Apps License. Affects pricing and capability.
Username/password, SAML SSO, OpenID Connect, social login. Pick based on user population and identity strategy.
- Guest User access has been the source of multiple Salesforce data leaks. Audit Guest User profile permissions, Guest User sharing rules, and Apex sharing logic carefully before exposing any record to public access.
- External user licenses are per active user or per login. Pricing scales with user count and login frequency. Plan licensing carefully because miscalculating produces budget surprises.
- Sharing for external users is its own discipline. The Sharing Set and Account-based sharing rule patterns differ from internal sharing. Test access combinations thoroughly during initial deployment.
- Performance varies with template choice. Some templates render slower than others on mobile devices. Test page load times across realistic user devices before launch.
- Custom domain configuration involves DNS records, SSL certificate management, and DNS propagation timing. Plan the domain cutover during low-traffic windows because misconfiguration produces immediate user-visible errors.