You create a partner user by enabling an existing contact on a partner-enabled account. The internal-facing steps below assume you have the right admin permission and a Partner Community license available to assign.
- Enable the account as a partner
Open the account that represents the partner company. From the account actions, choose Enable As Partner so the account can host external partner users. Confirm the account owner holds a role in your role hierarchy, because Salesforce places partner users beneath that owner.
- Open the contact and enable the partner user
Go to the contact record for the person who needs access. From the contact action menu, select Enable Partner User. This opens a new user record already linked to that contact and its account.
- Assign the license, profile, and role
On the user record, set the User License to Partner Community, then pick a profile cloned from a partner template and a partner role such as Partner User. These three choices control login type, object permissions, and where the user sits in the partner hierarchy.
- Control the welcome notification and save
If your Experience Cloud site is not active yet, deselect Generate New Password And Notify User Immediately so the person is not emailed early. Save the record, then send credentials once the site goes live.
Set to Partner Community for a full selling partner. This opens up roles, sharing, and reports that customer-tier licenses do not provide.
A partner profile that grants the object and tab access the partner needs. Clone from a partner template rather than reusing an internal profile.
A partner role under the account owner, such as Partner User, Partner Manager, or Partner Executive. The role drives record roll-up within the partner account.
Inherited from the enabled contact. The contact must sit on a partner-enabled account whose owner has a role, or the enable action fails.
- The partner account owner must have a role in the hierarchy, or you cannot enable any partner user on that account.
- Disabling the parent contact disables every external user tied to it, so deactivate the user instead when only one person should lose access.
- Use the Manage External Users permission, not the broad Manage Users permission, to provision and reset partner logins.
- Test visibility while logged in as the partner user, since admin access masks sharing gaps that partners will actually hit.