A Partner Role is assigned on the Contact record of the user, after the user is enabled as a Partner Community user. The steps below assume the Partner Account is already set up and Partner Community is enabled on it.
- Enable the Partner Account
Open the Account record. Click Manage External Account, then Enable as Partner. This creates the Partner Role hierarchy under the account and prepares it to host partner users.
- Enable the Contact as a Partner User
Open the Contact record for the partner contact. Click Manage External User, then Enable Partner User. The Setup form opens for the User record fields: license, profile, role.
- Pick the Partner Role on the User form
On the User form, the Role picker shows the Partner Role hierarchy under the parent account. Pick the level that matches the user's responsibility: Partner Executive for senior account owners, Partner Manager for team leads, Partner User for individual contributors.
- Save the User record
Save the User. Salesforce sends the welcome email and the user can log into the Partner Community. Their access rights now follow the chosen Partner Role's position in the hierarchy.
- Verify by logging in as the user
Use the Log In As feature to test the partner user's record access. Confirm they see only the records owned by themselves and roles below them in the same Partner Account. If access seems wider than expected, review any sharing rules that might be granting cross-account access.
The most senior level. Sees records owned by Partner Manager and Partner User on the same account.
The middle level. Sees records owned by Partner User on the same account.
The lowest level. Sees only own records and any explicitly shared records.
- Partner Roles only apply to Partner Community and Customer Community Plus licenses. High-volume licenses (Customer Community, Customer Community Login) do not use Partner Roles; assigning one in the UI does nothing.
- Each Partner Account has its own Partner Role hierarchy. Renaming a role applies only to that account. Mature programs use a consistent naming convention across accounts to keep dashboards comparable.
- Partner Roles do not grant cross-account access on their own. A partner user in Account A cannot see records owned by a partner user in Account B unless a sharing rule explicitly grants it.