A company may have partner organizations to manage, and may subsequently include them in their Salesforce platforms through a partner account. Portals may be enabled to help internal channel managers in managing these partner accounts and users. Who are channel managers, and what are their roles in your Salesforce organization?
Channel Manager Defined
A Channel Manager role in Salesforce is given to a person who manages partner accounts and partner users. The channel manager carries special access permissions to help them manage partner portals effectively.
Channel managers are part of the Salesforce Partner Community. They handle management of their partner establishments within Salesforce, helping forge better business partnerships that will ultimately benefit everyone’s business needs.
Configuring channel managers involve setting up their own personal profiles and roles.
Channel Manager Profiles
Channel managers are allowed to create profiles to help them with a number of platform management tasks such as setting user permissions, checking which record types and tabs are available for them, and controlling which page layouts they’ll see.
Channel Manager Roles
The role hierarchy you take on will determine which data your users may gain access to. Your roles as a channel manager are directly above your partner user’s own roles in the hierarchy; this allows you to gain access to data that are owned by your partners. Creating a channel manager role structure will help in managing your partner users’ roles as well.
Important Note About Partner Portals
This post was written for orgs who have continued access to partner portals. It’s because Salesforce made partner portals unavailable starting from their Summer ’13 release up to the present. Users who want to try out the information-sharing features of partner portals may proceed to using Salesforce Communities instead.
Again, please note that Partner portals are still available to existing organizations who have used it prior to Summer ’13 release. They have the option to continue using them or transition to Salesforce Communities instead.