Set Up Your Portal

Welcome. This guide takes you from a brand-new portal to a live partner program, then shows you how far the platform can go when you’re ready.

It’s organized in two parts. The Basics is a short list of must-dos — each one quick, and together enough to launch a working program. Optional Next Steps is everything else: powerful, but genuinely optional, and best added once the basics are in place. You don’t need all of it, and you don’t need any of it on day one.

These six steps are ordered the way most programs do them — fast, visible wins first, so you can watch your portal come to life before the deeper work.

Your program currency applies to every commission calculation and partner payout, so it’s the first thing to lock in. You’ll find it under Portal Setup → Payment Settings → Currency.

Set your currency →

Branding is the first thing partners see, and it takes about a minute. Under Portal Setup → Customization you can set your primary color (used in the sidebar, sign-in page, and links), status colors for leads and opportunities, your logos (two versions — one on a white background, one on your primary color), a favicon, and your fonts. A live preview updates as you go, and all image uploads must be .png.

Customize colors → · Upload your logos →

If others will help review leads, manage partners, or configure the portal, invite them from Account & Settings → Team. Only Portal Owners can add team members, and you assign each person a role that controls what they can see and do.

Add your team → · Roles and permissions →

This is what prospective partners see and agree to when they join. Under Portal Setup → Program Details you write a program description — which you can make public so it appears on your sign-in page before anyone registers — and, optionally, your legal terms.

You can tailor your legal terms per partner group, so different kinds of partners can agree to different terms. And as a Portal Owner you can require partners to re-accept their terms whenever you update them. If you manage agreements outside the portal (for example, through DocuSign), you can disable the terms section and attach signed documents to partner accounts instead.

Add your program description and terms →

Your portal ships with three sample announcements to show you how the feature works. Before you launch, replace them with a real welcome message of your own. Announcements can appear on the dashboard (and be pinned to the top), on the Announcements page, or both; you can limit them to specific partner groups; and you can email the audience when you publish.

Manage your announcements →

The fastest way to understand your portal is to experience it the way a partner will. Create a test partner, log in as them, and look around. Then register a test lead on their behalf and watch it move through your pipeline phases — this confirms everything is wired up before real partners start sending deals. You can keep the test partner afterward as a sandbox, or remove it.

Create a test partner → · Add a test lead →

PartnerPortal is a powerful, flexible platform, and there are many ways to configure a portal depending on how your program works. None of the following is required to launch — add what fits your program, and skip what doesn’t.

Partner groups let you treat different kinds of partners differently — by tier, region, partner type, or anything else. Each group can have its own content, its own program and legal terms, its own partner model, and its own screen customization, and every group has a registration link that places applicants straight into it.

Create partner groups →

A partner model sets how a partner takes part in your program, and you can set it at the portal, group, partner, or even individual-lead level:

• Referral — partners earn a commission on revenue they source.
• Reseller — partners buy at wholesale and keep the margin.
• Non-commercial — no payouts at all (useful for technology or community partners).

Give partners what they need to succeed. A resource library organized by category holds attachments of any file type. Courses are built from lessons with quizzes partners must pass, and certifications are earned by completing courses or awarded by hand. You can share any of these with everyone or with specific groups.

What it does. Connecting a CRM means approved partner leads flow straight into your sales pipeline and stay connected as the deal progresses — so partners can see status without asking, and your team works deals in the tool they already use. We support HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, and Attio. Along the way you can control the sync direction, map the lead fields and your pipeline stages to PartnerPortal’s lead phases, and rely on built-in channel-conflict prevention to flag leads that already exist.

How you’d set it up. Start with the overview below — it explains the model that’s common to every CRM (connecting your account, choosing a sync direction, and mapping fields and stages). Then open the guide for your specific CRM for the connect steps and provider-specific mapping.

Start here: Sync leads to your CRM →

What it does. PartnerPortal tracks the revenue your partners source and calculates what you owe them. Commissions can be a recurring percentage, a one-time percentage, or a fixed amount, for a duration you choose, and you can override the rate for a specific partner or lead. You review and approve commissions in one place, then pay through your own finance systems using AP-ready exports (or through PayPal), with payout reports showing what’s been paid and what’s still owed.

What you may want to configure. This is the most involved area, so it’s broken into a few independent pieces — set up only the ones your program needs:

• Partner model — if partners resell at a margin rather than earn referral commissions, set the model first (see “Choose how your partners participate” above).
• Payment settings — approvals, AP export defaults, commission source, and the commission schedule. (Currency lives here too — you set it in Step 1.)
• Commission tiers — automatically promote partners as they hit revenue, lead, or won-deal targets, each tier carrying its own commission structure.
• Revenue tracking — record revenue by hand, or capture it automatically from Stripe, QuickBooks, or Xero.
• Commission generation — control when and how commissions are generated from captured revenue.

Where to start. Read the big-picture model first, then configure the specific pieces.

Start here: Understanding payments →

Shape the lead experience to match your pipeline: add custom fields to the registration form (and choose which fields each partner group sees), and define the phases a lead moves through.

Beyond logo and colors, you can run the portal on your own custom domain, offer it in multiple languages, and show or hide individual menu items, dashboard blocks, and screen fields — for everyone or for a specific group.

A few extras help you promote partners and keep momentum: a public partner directory where prospects can find your partners, opportunities you send to partners, and SPIFFs for short-term incentive pushes.

For anything custom, connect PartnerPortal to the rest of your stack. Ask questions about your partners, leads, and revenue in plain language with Claude; get notifications in Slack; and build your own automations with Zapier, the public API, and webhooks.

When your basics are done and you’ve shaped the program the way you want it, invite your real partners — share your registration link, invite them directly by email, or bulk-invite by CSV.

Invite your partners →

Need a hand with any step? Reach us at [email protected].