Goal
Salesforce is a powerful and most used CRM platform, but licensing costs can quickly add up, especially when multiple users need access to different parts of the system. One strategy to optimize costs is by transitioning certain users to Partner Community licenses. This blog explores the benefits, considerations, and best practices of using Partner Community licenses to reduce costs while maintaining system functionality as it is and boosting the performance, user experience and productivity.
Why Consider Partner Community Licenses?
Partner Community licenses are designed for external stakeholders, such as business partners, vendors, and distributors, who need access to Salesforce data but don’t require the full functionality of standard Salesforce licenses. These licenses allow organizations to:
- Reduce Costs: Partner Community licenses are typically more affordable than full Salesforce licenses. It’s cost just $25 per license for regular users.
- Tailor Access: Provide specific data and features that external users need, without granting unnecessary permissions.
- Boost Collaboration: Enable real-time collaboration with external partners within Salesforce.
- Leverage Power of Experience Cloud: Experience Cloud offers rich customization options to build any kind of UX and Processes using LWC & Apex. We can deliver top-notch, personalized and high performance CRM features to our users with competitive cost.
Key Features of Partner Community Licenses
- Access to Standard Objects and Custom Objects: Users can interact with objects like Leads, Opportunities, and Cases. And they can still access Custom Objects as previously just by setting some permission on Profile and Permission set.
- Customizable Experience: Use Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) to tailor the user interface. Use LWC and Apex to deliver any kind of complex workflow and business processes.
- Advanced Data Sharing Rules: Control data visibility with role hierarchies and sharing rules.
- Integration Support: Partner Community users can access integrations like APIs or AppExchange apps based on permissions.
- Access to Report and Dashboard: Partner user still can access the Report and Dashboard as previously.
Cost-Saving Use Cases
Replacing Internal Licenses for Non-Core Users: Teams that need limited access to Salesforce for tasks like updating opportunities or tracking cases can use Partner Community licenses instead of full user licenses.
Vendor and Partner Management: External partners who help in lead generation or service delivery can access relevant Salesforce data without requiring an internal license.
Customer-Facing Roles with Limited Needs: Employees in roles like Onboarding Support, Account Management or Customer Success who primarily interact with external stakeholders, can use these licenses.
Implementation Tips
- Audit Current Used Licenses:
- Identify users who don’t fully utilize the functionality of their current licenses and could work with Partner Community licenses.
- Check the login history to verify who logs in Salesforce not very frequently.
- Verify the data, there are some users who neither create any record nor own any record. So we can identify them and move into Partner License.
- Design a Robust Experience Cloud Site:
- Build a user-friendly community portal where Partner Community users can log in and access necessary data.
- Do not hesiate building any new custom component rather than using standard component which is not user friendly or productive.
- Set Up Role-Based Access: Use role hierarchies to manage data visibility for community users, ensuring they only access relevant information.
- Train Users: Provide training to ensure users understand how to navigate and use the Experience Cloud interface effectively.
- Plan proper
Potential Challenges & Implication
- Feature Limitations:
- Partner Community licenses may not support all functionalities needed by some users.
- Certain Lightning-only features, such as dynamic forms and some standard Lightning components, may not be fully supported or behave differently in Partner Communities.
- Advanced Einstein Analytics dashboards may not be fully usable in the Partner Community.
- Partner Community licenses are designed for external users, which limits the ability to use certain internal Salesforce features, such as Campaign management, Opportunity splits, or advanced forecasting.
- Customization Effort: Setting up a tailored Experience Cloud portal requires initial investment in time and resources. For example, some components available for internal users might not be shared with Partner users due to licensing or permissions constraints.
- Integration Complexities:
- Not all integrations may work seamlessly with Partner Community licenses.
- Integration with certain third-party apps might require additional workarounds for Partner Community users, as some apps are built for full Salesforce users.
Access Control:
- Access to objects and data is more restricted for Partner Community users compared to internal users. For instance, advanced sharing settings or role-based hierarchies might need more effort to configure for Partners in the Lightning Experience.
Performance Considerations:
- Partner Community users may experience performance lags when using Lightning Experience if large datasets or complex pages are loaded, especially if the Community isn’t optimized for external users.
- Data Migration Requirement:
- If we move one user to community, then we need another profile with Partner Community license. So, we need to create a new user for him and need to migrate all references from old User record to new User record.
Conclusion
By strategically leveraging Partner Community licenses, organizations can significantly reduce Salesforce licensing costs without compromising on productivity or collaboration. However, this requires careful planning and execution to ensure the licenses meet business needs. Evaluate your user base, design a robust community, and train users to maximize the benefits of this cost-saving strategy.
Need Help?
At Tenetizer Technologies, we specialize in Salesforce license optimization and implementation. Contact us to explore how you can save costs while enhancing Salesforce efficiency.