Enable Chatter Free Licenses for Projects shared with External Contacts (BETA)

Please Note: This feature is being retired as part of our Winter 22 Release. For existing customers, we will continue to support this feature until December 1, 2022.

Inspire Planner provides you with the option of using Salesforce Chatter Free licenses to collaborate with external contacts on projects shared with them through the Inspire Planner External Portal.

When Chatter Free Group is enabled for a Project, a Chatter Group is automatically created for the Project and project collaborators are automatically added as members to the Chatter Group. You are then able to easily communicate with external contacts using the Chatter feed on the project.

This help article will walk you through how to enable Chatter Free licenses for Projects.

• Set a Chatter User Domain & Internal URL
• Adjust Project Page Layout to Include Chatter Free-Related Fields
• Enable Chatter Free Group for a Project
• Collaborate with External Contacts via the Project Chatter Feed

Set a Chatter User Domain & Internal URL

This section will walk you through how to set up a Chatter user domain and populate the Internal URL in Inspire Planner Custom Settings. The Chatter user domain is used to create usernames for external contacts when they are added as Project Collaborators to a project where Chatter Free is enabled.

1. Click on the Gear Icon at the top right corner and go to Setup.
   
   
    
2. Enter "Custom Settings" in the Quick Find Box at the top left corner and click on Custom Settings.
   
   
    
3. Click on Manage beside Inspire Planner Config.
   
   
    
4. Click on Edit on top of the page.
   
   
    
5. Enter the domain you would like to use in the Chatter User Domain box (for example, <your org name>.org). The Chatter user domain is used to create usernames for external contacts when they are added as Project Collaborators to a project where Chatter Free is enabled.
   
   
   
    
6. Enter your Salesforce custom domain URL in the InternalURL field.
   
   For example: https://inspiretraining.my.salesforce.com (replace the highlighted section of the URL with your organization's custom domain)
   
   Click on Save when finished.
   
   
   
    

Adjust Project Page Layout to include Chatter Free-Related Fields

Now that you've set up a Chatter User Domain for your Salesforce Org, you would need to adjust the Project Page Layout to include the fields related to enabling Chatter Free for a project.

1. While still in Setup, navigate to Object Manager.
   
   
   
    
2. Enter "Project" in the Quick Find box at the top right corner and click on Project in the list of objects.
   
   
    
3. Go to Page Layouts in the menu on the left.
   
   
    
4. Click on the drop down arrow to the right of the page layout you wish to adjust and click on Edit.
   
   
   
    
5. Enter "Chatter" in the Quick Find box within the list of Fields. Drag the following fields to your desired area on the page - Chatter Group ID and User Chatter Free Group.
   
   Then, click on Save.
   
   
    

Enable Chatter Free Group for a Project

Once you've set up a Chatter User Domain and have modified your Project page layout to include the necessary fields, you can now choose to enable Chatter Free Groups on any of your Projects.
 

Please note: If you would like to be able to use Chatter Free Groups for a Project, you need to enable "Use Chatter Free Group" on the project first before you add Project Collaborators.
 

1. Go the Project Detail and select the box called "Use Chatter Free Group" and click on Save.
   
   
   After saving, you will notice that a Chatter Group ID is automatically created and it will display the group Id in the box labeled "Chatter Group ID".
   
   
    
2. Next, add your project collaborators. If you are not yet familiar with how to share projects with collaborators, please see this article: Share a Project (Project Collaborators).
   
   Please note: The first time a contact is added to a project where "Use Chatter Free Group" is enabled, a new Salesforce Chatter Free user account is created for the contact. Therefore, we recommend those with System Admin privileges be the ones to add the contact as a collaborator first since the user adding the contact as a collaborator needs to have permissions in Salesforce to create Salesforce users. Once a Chatter Free user account has been created for the contact, then the contact can be added by any user to any other project with "Use Chatter Free Group" enabled since there is already an existing Salesforce Chatter Free user account for the contact.
    
3. If this the first time the external contact is added as a collaborator on a project where Use Chatter Free Group is enabled, the the external contact will receive three (3) emails:
   
   Salesforce account activation email - a Salesforce user account with a Chatter Free license is created for the external contact. The external contact then receives an user account activation email. Click on the link within the email to activate the account. 
   
   Chatter Group Addition notification email - the external contact receives a notification email informing them that they have been added to the chatter group for the project.
   
   Shared Project notification email - the external contact receives an email notifying them that a project has been shared with them. The email contains a link with the Project Name and when they click on the link, it takes them to the Inspire Planner External Portal login page.  

Collaborate with External Contacts via the Project Chatter Feed

Once "Use Chatter Free Group" has been enabled for a project, you can now easily collaborate with external contacts using the Project Chatter feed.

You can access the Project Chatter feed by clicking on the Chatter Discussion for Project icon within the Project Toolbar on the left.
 

If you are on the Project Detail page, you may also access the Project Chatter Feed in the Chatter Component on the right of the page. 

Please note that the Project Chatter Feed is how you communicate with external contacts while the Project Task Chatter Feed is reserved for internal communication. Anything posted on the Project Chatter Feed is visible for all members of the Project Chatter Group.