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Manage Users and Data Access
Configure an External Account Hierarchy

Configure an External Account Hierarchy

Set up an external account hierarchy to share data seamlessly with other external users.

Required Editions

Note
Note This feature is available in orgs with Partner or Customer Community Plus licenses.
Available in: Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience
Available in: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions
Applies to: LWR, Aura, and Visualforce sites
User Permissions Needed
To manage external users: Manage External Users
To create, edit, and delete profiles: Manage Profiles and Permission Sets
Tip
Tip Check out this feature in Salesforce Go! Find a guided setup experience, explore more content, discover related features, and monitor feature usage. See Discover and Set Up Features With Salesforce Go.

External account hierarchies work like Salesforce role hierarchies. You can share data without creating sharing rules. For example, if you have a child record and a parent record in the same external account hierarchy, the record data owned by users associated with child accounts is shared with users in parent accounts.

External account hierarchy
Note
Note Sharing rules can work along with external account hierarchies. Data shared by sharing sets doesn’t roll up in role hierarchies.

Learn more about external account hierarchies in this video.

  1. Enable external account hierarchies.
  2. To create a hierarchy, enter External Account Hierarchies in the App Launcher and then select External Account Hierarchies.
  3. Click New.
  4. Enter a name for the external account hierarchy, and select the account that it’s associated with.
  5. Check the Is Hierarchy Active box.
  6. For the Hierarchy Type, select Partner.
  7. Save your changes.
  8. To create a level within your hierarchy, click the dropdown arrow on the External Account Hierarchy tab, and select New External Account Hierarchy.
  9. Specify a name for the new hierarchy and the account that it’s associated with.
  10. Select the external account hierarchy that you created in Step 4 as the Parent for this hierarchy.
  11. Repeat steps 5 through 7.
  12. You can continue to build your hierarchy up to five levels deep. If you need a hierarchy that’s more than five levels deep, contact your Salesforce account executive.
 
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