Sharing, Visibility, and Licensing17% of the exam
External account hierarchies and account relationships
How data moves between external accounts: external account hierarchies that share child-account data up to the highest role at each parent level (and their limits, including incompatibility with account role optimization), account relationships with data sharing rules between peer partner accounts, and when a sharing set over Contacts to Multiple Accounts fits instead.
Given a scenario, implement external account relationships for an Experience.
~7 min read · 6 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Build an external account hierarchy so parent-account users see data owned by child-account users, and predict which parent roles receive it.
- State the hierarchy's limits: levels, account types, one active hierarchy per account, no merging, no account role optimization, and the effect on internal owners of child accounts.
- Configure an account relationship and its data sharing rule so one peer partner account shares records with another, in the right direction and scope.
- Choose between a hierarchy, account relationships and a Contacts to Multiple Accounts sharing set for a given account structure and license.
Key terms:
- External account hierarchy: parent and child external accounts arranged so child data is shared up to parent accounts.
- Account relationship: a record linking an Account From (gaining access) to an Account To (giving access).
- Account relationship data sharing rule: defines the object, criteria field and access level an account relationship shares.
- Account Relationship Type: the picklist value that ties a relationship to its rule.
- Account role optimization (ARO): role setting incompatible with external account hierarchies; taught in External roles, super users and role optimization.
Key facts
Licenses
- Detail
- External account hierarchies need Partner or Customer Community Plus licenses
Direction
- Detail
- Data owned by child-account users is shared with parent-account users
Sharing sets
- Detail
- Data shared by sharing sets doesn't roll up in role hierarchies
Who receives it
- Detail
- The highest role at each level
Depth
- Detail
- Five levels by default
Mixing
- Detail
- Partner or customer accounts, not both; one active hierarchy per account
ARO
- Detail
- Incompatible with external account hierarchies
Child account owners
- Detail
- Can't manage the account's external users; lose access to their records
Enable Account Relationships
- Detail
- Digital Experiences Settings; can't be disabled
Rule access levels
- Detail
- Read and Write only
Owner Id vs Partner Account Id
- Detail
- Owned by Account To's partner users vs every record listing Account To
Account To and Account From
- Detail
- Giving access vs gaining access; type must match the rule
- Why do only some roles on a parent account receive data owned by users of a child account?
- When is an external account hierarchy not an option even with Partner Community licenses?
- Which field on an account relationship names the account that gives access to its records?
- How does a Customer Community user see cases on every account related to their contact?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
Keep reading with the Experience Cloud Consultant pack
- Core concepts
- Exam traps
- Worked scenario
The pack includes:
- All 37 lessons of the Experience Cloud Consultant guide, with reading progress
- Interactive decision walks and step-by-step sequence steppers
- Inline practice questions and one-click topic practice (6 questions for this lesson)
- An official source cited for every claim
- An AI tutor that answers from the guide
- Unlimited timed practice exams