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Set Up Your Public Portal

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to: 

  • Create a profile for site users.
  • Create an Experience Cloud site with the Licenses and Permits template.
  • Add users and grant site access.
  • Preview and activate your site.

Configure Profiles for Portal Users

Every Public Sector Solutions org comes with a Customer Community or Customer Community Plus license and a corresponding profile. Use either solution to give internal users and external, constituent users access to an Experience Cloud site. The site is your platform for engaging constituents. They can use it to apply for licenses, permits, programs, and services.

Note

Public Sector Solutions includes Experience Cloud site templates and pages for several features, including Benefit Assistance, Grantmaking, and Licensing and Permitting. See the Experience Cloud Sites for Public Sector Solutions article in Salesforce Help for more information and setup steps.

To prepare her site, Tishon starts by customizing the Customer Community profile for Public Sector Solutions.

  1. From Setup, in the Quick Find box, search for and then select Profiles.
  2. Look for the Customer Community or Customer Community Plus User profile, and then click Clone.
  3. Enter a new Name, such as License and Permit Community User, and save your changes.
  4. Select System Permissions and then select Edit.
  5. Enable these permissions:
    • Access Activities
    • Discovery Framework Platform User
    • Edit Tasks
    • Enables consumers and partners to execute OmniScripts, DRs, Cards through a Community or off platform
    • Grant users access to Industries Interaction Calculation features
    • Provides site users with access to Decision Explainers features and APIs
    • Run Decision Tables
  6. Save your changes.
  7. Select Profile Overview to return to the License and Community User profile screen.
  8. Select App Permissions and then select Edit.
  9. Enable Run Flows and then save your work.
  10. Select Profile Overview and set the Object Settings.
  11. Save the profile changes.

Enable Digital Experiences

Now that she has set up users, Tishon can start preparing the portal. First, she enables Digital Experiences, the first step to creating an Experience Cloud site.

  1. From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Digital Experiences, and then select Digital Experiences | Settings.
  2. Select Enable Digital Experiences. Because Tishon previously configured My Domain, she sees her digital experiences domain in the format MyDomainName.my.site.com.
  3. Save your work.

Create an Experience Cloud Site

Now, Tishon creates her Experience Cloud site from the Licenses and Permits template that comes with Public Sector Solutions. The template includes pages that allow Cosville constituents to apply for licenses and permits, review their application statuses, file complaints, and more. Eventually, Tishon wants to give her constituents additional features, but for now, she starts with licensing and permitting.

  1. From Setup, in the Quick Find box, search for and then select All Sites.
  2. Click New.
  3. Select Licenses and Permits, and then click Get Started.
  4. Enter a site name.
  5. For URL, optionally, enter a page name to append to your site domain. For example, if your site domain name is CosvilleGov.my.site.com and you’re creating a site for licensing, enter licenses to create the URL CosvilleGov.my.site.com/licenses.
  6. Click Create.

The site is created in Preview status. Tishon has some more work to do before she activates it. Namely, she needs to allow constituents to access the site to submit applications.

Add Members to Your Public Portal

Tishon adds site members based on the custom Customer Community profile she created earlier.

  1. In the Administration workspace for the site, click Members.
  2. In the Select Profiles section, to add the Customer Community Plus User, Customer Community Plus Login User, or your own custom constituent profile, change the Search selection to Customer, and add the appropriate profiles to the Selected Profiles list. To add the System Administrator or a profile for an internal user, change the Search selection to Internal, and add the appropriate profiles.
  3. Save your changes.

If the site is active and welcome emails are enabled, users receive a welcome email with a username and a change-password link.

Set Up Self-Registration

Constituents visit your Public Sector Solutions portal to complete applications, such as for licenses, permits, program, and services. When they create an application, Salesforce creates a person account for the constituent. In this way, the constituent self-registers with the portal. Tishon has already enabled person accounts, so now she needs to enable self-registration in the Cosville Experience Cloud site.

Here's how Tishon sets up self-registration on her portal.

  1. In the Administration workspace, select the Login & Registration page.
  2. Under Registration Page Configuration, select Allow customers and partners to self-register.
  3. Assign users to your community profile. For example, for Profile select License and Permit Community User.
  4. Save your changes.

Preview, Test, and Activate Your Site

Before going live, Tishon previews her site to see how it looks in a desktop browser window and on a mobile device. 

Let’s follow her steps.

  1. In Experience Builder, click Preview.
  2. In Preview mode, to see the site in a browser tab as:
    • A logged-in customer sees it, click The eye icon and select Authenticated User.
    • An unauthenticated visitor sees it, click The eye icon and select Guest User. As long as your site includes one public page, such as the Home page, you can use the Guest User option.
  1. To preview the site on different devices, click The monitor icon and select Mobile, Tablet, or Desktop.
  2. Navigate around the site to make sure it works as expected.
  3. Click Back to Builder when you're finished previewing and testing the site.

Tishon is ready to launch her site to the public. When she activates it, Salesforce sends a welcome email to all members and the site is ready for indexing by search engines. After activating the site, Tishon also publishes it to activate the URL and enable login access for members.

Let's see how Tishon activates and publishes the site.

  1. In the Administration workspace for the site, on the Settings page, click Activate, and then click OK.
  2. In Experience Builder for the site, click Publish.

Tishon has successfully created the Cosville public portal. If you need help with additional administrative setup tasks in Public Sector Solutions, Guided Setup can walk you through configuring inspections, Business Rules Engine, CRM Analytics, and more.

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