Choosing the Right Salesforce External Licenses

NOTE: Always refer to Salesforce.com for the most recent updates on licenses, as they frequently undergo changes.

Choosing the Right External Licenses is a key skill set for an architect and for CTA Exam. Below is my first attempt to organize Licenses by Features and Supported Objects.

To keep this simple, i have removed the difference between Login & Member Based Licenses.

Top Licenses Included in our comparison are:

1. Identity for Customers & Partners

2. Commerce Portals

3. Customer Community

4. Customer Community Plus

5. Partner Community / Partner Relationship Management (PRM)

6. External Apps

Salesforce External License by Objects & Features. (Stacked View)

Some important Exceptions:

1. “PRM License (Partner Relationship Management)” is similar to “Partner Community License”, except if provisioned:

   1. Will receive 40x the amount of data storage (200MB) per Partner Community Member (5MB)

   2. Will recieve 12x the amount of API calls/day (2400) per Partner Community Member (200)

2. "Identity for Customers and Partners" - This should not be confused with "Internal Identity Only" Licenses. Customers receive 100 complementary Internal Only Licenses with most of the Salesforce Editions.

3. Some objects are available as part of Licenses, but are contractually restricted. For Example, when provisioned with “Customer Community License”.

   1. Employee Cases - Cannot be used to resolve cases for Customers.

   2. Work Orders - Cannot be used for Customer Work Orders.

4. Simple Sharing here means "Sharing Sets".

5. “Commerce Portal” License can have upto 100 Custom Objects, but not available for Customer Community, Plus and Partner Licenses. The only way to upgrade is to purchase “External App” License