Legacy Partner Connect Security and Design

External Client Apps for Legacy Partner Connect

The admin at the vendor company initiates the Partner Connect setup process between orgs. After turning on the Partner Connect setting, the vendor admin provides some basic information about the partner company and partner admin with whom they wish to connect. Then Salesforce invites the partner admin to complete the connection request by email, which includes turning on Partner Connect in their own org. After the partner admin turns on Partner Connect in the partner org, Partner Connect automates creating these items in both orgs.

• An external client app that represents the external org’s connection to your org. External client app names are prepended with PRM Partner: or PRM Vendor: and appended by the name of the account record for the external org who you’re connected to. For example, after setup is complete, a vendor admin sees an external client app with a name such as PRM Partner: CTW Sales Agents. The partner admin sees an external client app such as PRM Vendor: Pacifica Inc.
• A user named PRM External Integration User and an assigned integration user license called PRM External Integration. The integration user is authorized to export records from the vendor to the partner org and update records between the vendor and partner in both directions.
• A paired named credential and external credential.
  • PRM Partner Named Credential or PRM Vendor Named Credential (appended with the name of the account record for the external org). The named credential identifies the external org’s URL.
  • PRM Partner External Credential and PRM Vendor External Credential (appended with the name of the account record for the external org). The external credential pairs with the corresponding named credential to gain authorization to the external org as the PRM External Integration user to automate writing exported records and updates to connected external records.

After these items are successfully created, a secure connection is established between the vendor and partner orgs. You can’t modify these items after they’re created. If you’re experiencing an issue with any of the items after they’re created, we recommend that both Partner Connect admins delete their connections and step through connection setup again.

Authentication During Export

After a partner user attempts to export records from the vendor’s partner site, the named credential, external client app, and the integration user work together to authenticate the vendor org to the partner org. Here’s how the export authentication flow works.

• First, a trusted partner user (who the vendor admin designates by assigning Partner Connect export permissions), logs in to the vendor’s partner site and selects records to export to the partner’s own org. The partner org’s URL is obtained from the PRM Named Credential in the vendor org.
• Next, the Salesforce OAuth 2.0 token endpoint validates the PRM External Credential. This process lets the vendor org obtain a token to authenticate to the partner org on behalf of the PRM External Integration User. The Salesforce OAuth 2.0 token endpoint includes a consumer key and consumer secret unique to the PRM_Connection external client app. Partner Connects makes an API call that uses the vendor’s PRM Named Credential and the retrieved token. Doing so creates a platform event that includes the exported record data requested by the partner user.
• Partner Connect makes an API call using the vendor’s PRM Named Credential and the retrieved token. Doing so creates a platform event that includes the exported record data requested by the partner user.

The PRM External Integration User only has access to complete these two actions during export.

• To read exported record data selected by partner users from the vendor’s org. A partner user can export only the records that the vendor org’s sharing settings, organization-wide access levels, and object and field security allow the partner to see.
• To write the exported record data to the partner’s org. Data can be written only to the partner org that the vendor admin authorized during Partner Connect setup.

Authentication During Updates

After a record is successfully exported from a vendor’s partner site and successfully imported into the authorized partner org, Partner Connect lets users in both orgs track how the record evolves over time. To make that information available across orgs, Partner Connect maps the vendor’s original record and the partner’s newly imported record across orgs, establishing and maintaining a connection. A read-only version of the vendor’s record is also created in the partner’s org and established as a child record to the imported record. If the original record was a lead, the read-only record is created on the Connected External Lead object. If the original record is an opportunity, the read-only record is created on the Connected External Opportunity object. Both vendors and partners get a view of how progress is going in the opposite system by viewing the read-only record from a related list in their own org.

After a vendor user updates a field that's set to integrate, the named credential, external client app, and the integration user work together to authenticate the vendor org to the partner org. Then Partner Connect writes the vendor user’s updates to the partner org’s connected record. The three steps described in the export authentication flow then occur in the opposite direction, from vendor to partner.

After a partner user updates a field that's set to integrate, a read-only version of the partner’s record is created in the vendor’s org. The read-only version is established as a child record to the original record. The named credential, external client app, and the integration user work together to authenticate the partner org to the vendor org. Then the same three steps described in the export authentication flow are repeated to write the partner user’s updates to the vendor org’s connected record.

The PRM External Integration User has access to complete only two actions during a record update.

• To read record updates made by partner and vendor users. Updates are permitted only for objects and fields that Partner Connect admins elected to integrate during Partner Connect setup.
• To write updated record data to the connected external record in the external org. Data can be written only between the orgs that Partner Connect admins authorized during Partner Connect setup.