Oracle CRM On Demand for Partner Relationship Management Configuration Guide > Managing Partner Relationships > About Partner Account and Profiling Management >

Guidelines for Working with Partner Accounts

When you are setting up and working with partner accounts, consider the following guidelines:

• Partner accounts are a subclass of accounts. Because the partner record type is a subclass of the account record type, custom fields added to the account record type also appear in the partner record type. However, the reverse is not true. Custom fields added to the partner record type are not available in the account record type.

  NOTE:  When you edit a partner account from the Accounts tab, the Account Type field (set to Partner) is visible. When you edit a partner account from the Partners tab, the Account Type field is not visible, because the only account type that a partner account can have is Partner.

• Create partner accounts using the Partner tab. It is recommended that a PRM partner account is created and managed through the Partner tab.

  You can create PRM partner accounts through the Accounts tab, or through the Partners tab. If you create the account through the Partners tab, then the account type is automatically set to Partner and the Managed Partner Flag is automatically set to Y. If you create an account through the Accounts tab and want to designate it as a partner account, then you must set the Account Type field to Partner and the Managed Partner Flag to Y if you want the record to be treated as a PRM partner account in the partner record type. Designating an account as a partner account results in the account being visible through the Partners tab.

• Changing the account type of a partner is restricted. You cannot change the account type of a partner account to anything other than Partner while the partner organization status on the partner account is set to Active.

  To change the account type of a partner account, you must first set the partner organization status on the account to Inactive through the Partners tab. You can then change the account type value through the Accounts tab.

• Deleting partner accounts with an active status is not allowed. Oracle CRM On Demand does not allow you to delete an active partner account (that is, an account of the type Partner, where the partner organization status is set to Active) from the Accounts tab. This is because partner accounts can have opportunities and other records associated with them. Also, you cannot delete an account from the Partners tab, you can only make the partner account inactive.

  To delete a partner account, you must first set the partner organization status on the account to Inactive through the Partner tab. You can then delete the account through the Accounts tab.

  When you delete a partner account from the Accounts tab, Oracle CRM On Demand checks to make sure that the partner organization status on the account is set to Inactive, to prevent accidental deletion of an active partner record. For more information, see Oracle CRM On Demand Online Help.

• Defining a partner hierarchy is allowed. You can indicate partner hierarchies, such as a company that is a subsidiary of another company, by defining a parent-child relationship between accounts. The user of the parent account allows a hierarchy to be defined. For more information about partners, see Oracle CRM On Demand Online Help.