Understanding Salesforce Communities and Licenses
Salesforce communities can be a huge boost for any business because it allows you to connect with your partners, customers and internal team in a curated and functional way. You can connect your Salesforce org, define exactly what data will be shown to users of the community and custom tailor it to your use case, sales, customer support, knowledge bases, you name it.
Because communities can be so flexible and useful, there are also a number of considerations and options relating to creating a community, specifically around licensing. There are actually 6 different licenses for external community users:
- Customer Community
- Customer Community Plus
- Partner Community
- Lightning External Apps Starter
- Lightning External Apps Plus
- Channel Account
Each of these licenses allows a different type of access and each is associated with an individual user. As a bit of clarification, a user is someone who will login, and use the community. Guests to the community (ex. Knowledge base sites) have no restrictions.
How do you get licenses? Simply put, you buy them from Salesforce. Generally, they are purchased in bundles, depending on your individual needs. Once you have them, you can go into Salesforce and assign the different contacts as users of your community. As an alternative, you can purchase logins, rather than licenses. Logins are a one time use, and are a great option if you have a large volume of potential users, who may or may not exist in your org.
Want more details?
Click here to get the breakdown on community licenses from Salesforce!
-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team
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CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.