Turning an existing business account into a partner account is a quick admin task, but it has prerequisites. Partner features must be enabled in your org, you need partner licenses available, and the account must be a business account owned by an internal user who has a role. Once those are in place, the steps below enable the account and its first partner user.
- Open the account record
Find the business account for the partner company. Confirm it is a business account, not a person account, and that its owner is an internal user with a role in the hierarchy. Partner data rolls up to that owner.
- Enable the account as a partner
From the account, choose the Enable as Partner action. This flags the account for partner access and makes it eligible to host external partner users. The account remains a normal account for all other purposes.
- Enable a contact as a partner user
Open a contact under that account and choose Enable Partner User. Assign a profile cloned from the standard Partner User profile and a partner license. Salesforce builds the Partner User, Partner Manager, and Partner Executive roles under the account owner on first enablement.
- Grant access and test the login
Use sharing rules, sharing sets, and permission sets to share the leads, opportunities, and resources the partner should see. Then log in as the partner user to confirm they see only what you intended in the Experience Cloud site.
Must be a business account. Person accounts cannot be enabled as partner accounts.
An internal user who holds a role in the role hierarchy, since partner user records roll up to this owner.
A profile cloned from the standard Partner User profile. Standard internal profiles are not valid for partner users.
Each partner user consumes a partner license, which must be available in your org before you enable them.
- Leave the API Only User permission unchecked on cloned partner profiles, or the partner cannot log in to the portal.
- Partner accounts cannot be deleted, only disabled. Plan account hygiene with that in mind.
- Disabling a partner user makes their partner role obsolete, so their records stop rolling up to the partner account.
- The Role field is read-only when you enable the first partner user on an account, but becomes editable for users you add afterward.