For new partner-facing deployments, use Experience Cloud with a Partner template. For existing legacy Partner Portal deployments, plan a migration to Experience Cloud.
- Confirm Partner Community licensing
The license type is the foundation of partner identity. Confirm with the Salesforce account team that the org has Partner Community licenses available.
- Build an Experience Cloud Partner site
Setup, Digital Experiences, All Sites, New. Pick a Partner template (Customer Service, Partner Central, others). The template seeds pages and a base configuration.
- Configure branding and pages
Experience Builder lets you customize the site through drag-and-drop. Add Lightning components, configure page layouts, brand the colors and logo.
- Set up partner Account and User records
Create Account records for each partner organization. Enable Partner Account on the Account. Create User records with Partner Community licenses for the individual partner users.
- Configure sharing rules and data access
Decide which Leads, Opportunities, and Cases partners should see. Build sharing rules tying the partner Account to the relevant records.
- Set up Lead routing and deal registration
Configure Lead Assignment Rules to route new leads to partner queues. Build a Deal Registration custom workflow that partners can submit through the site.
- Launch the site to partner users
Activate the site, send login invitations to partner users, monitor adoption through site analytics and Login History reports.
- Migrate legacy Partner Portal deployments
For existing Classic Partner Portal, build the Experience Cloud equivalent in parallel, migrate users, decommission the legacy portal.
The Salesforce-provided starting point for partner-facing sites. Includes pages, navigation, and base configuration.
The license type for external partner users, with constraints on Apex and batch operations.
Account-level flag that designates an Account as a partner organization, enabling partner user creation.
Assignment Rules and Flow logic that distribute new leads to partner queues.
Workflow where partners submit deals for vendor approval, creating tracked Opportunities with explicit partner credit.
The deprecated Classic-era partner portal, superseded by Experience Cloud in 2017.
- Partner Portal is a legacy term. New deployments use Experience Cloud with a Partner template. The Classic Partner Portal does not run in Lightning Experience.
- Partner Community licenses have constraints. Apex triggers running as partner users behave differently from internal-user contexts. Test partner-facing automation carefully.
- Sharing rules for partner access need to be deliberate. Over-sharing leaks competitive information; under-sharing creates "I cannot see my deal" complaints.
- Deal registration workflows are often custom. The platform provides the building blocks (Opportunity, Approval Process, Flow) but the specific workflow is org-configurable.
- Migration from Classic Partner Portal to Experience Cloud takes months for enterprise deployments. Plan it as a coordinated project, not a quick technical migration.