Overview of Managing Partner Contacts

A partner contact is a person within the partner company. A partner contact can be a member of only one partner organization. Channel account managers can create and manage partner contacts.

Partners and channel managers can both mark their favorite partner contacts using the Add to favorites icon on the Partner Contacts page.

Types of Partner Contacts

There are three different types or levels of partner contacts, with each type providing greater access to sales functionality. The following table shows each type or level for partner contacts, including partner contact, partner resource, and partner user.

Type of Partner Contact	Description
Partner Contact	A partner contact is a person working for the partner organization. Channel managers can use partner contacts in the same way salespeople use account contacts in a direct sales environment. For example, channel managers must know who's who within a partner organization and how to reach them. The difference between account contacts and partner contacts is that account contacts are the people your sales organization sells to and partner contacts are the people your sales organization sells with.
Partner Resource	When partners participate in the sales process, channel managers can assign a role to the partner contacts of the partner organization and transform these partner contacts into partner resources. Partner resources can be assigned to sales object teams, such as accounts or opportunities, so that channel managers can better track what the resources within a partner organization are working on. Channel managers can also select a manager for the partner resource.
Partner User	If a partner organization agrees to use the channel organization's Oracle sales application to manage their sales objects, such as accounts and opportunities, then channel managers can create a user account for the partner resources of that partner organization. When channel managers create a user account for a partner resource, the partner resource becomes a partner user. Partner users have more privileges, such as being able to sign into the channel organization's sales application and work their opportunities or manage their accounts either alone or with the channel organization's sales organization.

Assign Roles to Contacts

Channel account managers can enable a partner contact as resource by assigning a role to the contact, and optionally provisioning a user account for the contact. To assign a role to a contact, click the Manager User Details link on the Edit Partner Contact page.

If the primary contact was created when the partner account was created, then the primary contact was automatically assigned the Partner Administrator role. You can change this role, if required.

If a partner account was created without a primary contact, then you can always add the primary contact later and assign a role at that time. A partner account can be created without a primary contact only if the Partner Contact Required for Active Partners profile option (ZPM_PARTNER_CONTACT_MANDATORY) is set to No.

Note: The partner account to which the partner contact belongs must be in Active status before you can enable the partner contact as a resource or see the Create User Account check box on the Manage User Details page.

Add Existing Account Contacts as Partner Contacts

Channel account managers can add existing account contacts to a partner as partner contacts, so they don't create multiple records for the same contact person. To add account contacts as partner contacts, the partner must also be an account.

When channel account managers delete partner contacts with user accounts, those user accounts are deactivated so the partner contacts can no longer sign into the partner portal.