Definition
A Salesforce user who accesses the platform through an Experience Cloud site (portal or community), typically a customer, partner, or other non-employee with a limited license such as Customer Community or Partner Community.
Real-World Example
Consider a scenario where a platform engineer at NovaScale is working with External User to enhance the organization's Salesforce footprint with additional functionality. By leveraging External User, the team avoids building a custom solution from scratch, saving months of development time while gaining enterprise-grade features out of the box.
Why External User Matters
An External User is a Salesforce user who accesses the platform through an Experience Cloud site, typically a customer, partner, or other non-employee. External users have a different license type than internal employees: Customer Community, Customer Community Plus, Partner Community, or other external user license types depending on their use case. These licenses are typically less expensive than internal user licenses and have different feature scopes.
External user licensing is one of the most important planning considerations for any Experience Cloud deployment because it directly affects cost and capability. Different license types support different volumes (per-login or member-based pricing) and different features (Partner Community supports more sales features than Customer Community). Choosing the wrong license type early can be expensive to fix later. Mature deployments plan their external user model carefully, often using different license types for different audiences within the same site or across sites.
How Organizations Use External User
- •Skyline Consulting — Helps clients evaluate Customer Community versus Customer Community Plus based on which features external users actually need. The choice affects both cost and capability significantly.
- •Vertex Global — Uses Partner Community licenses for their channel partners because partners need access to Opportunities and other sales features that basic Customer Community doesn't include.
- •NovaScale — Audits External User license usage quarterly to ensure they're using the right license tier for actual usage patterns.