Setup Assistant
What it is. A checklist that tells you whether the portal is correctly set up.
What it does. It checks the things the portal needs on the Salesforce side and reports each one as done or needing attention.
Why it helps. When something does not work at all — nobody can sign in, no records appear anywhere — this says which step was missed instead of leaving you to guess.
Where it lives
The Setup Assistant is on the Salesforce side, not in the portal. Whoever installed the package opens it there.
Most portal administrators never need it. It matters at installation, and when something stops working in a way that affects everybody at once.
What it checks
| Check | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Permissions on the portal's own user | Without them the portal cannot read anything, for anybody. |
| Field access | New fields are invisible to the portal until access is granted. |
| The site is active | An inactive site serves nothing at all. |
| Email deliverability | Welcome and password-reset emails are dropped silently without it. |
Reading it
Completed means that step is done.
Needs attention means it is not, and the item says what to do about it.
When to run it
- Straight after installing, before adding any users.
- After adding new fields — field access is not granted automatically, and this is the single most common cause of "the field is there in Salesforce but not in the portal".
- When something stops working for everybody at once, to rule setup out before looking anywhere else.
The difference between this and permissions
Permissions control what one person may do.
The Setup Assistant checks what the portal itself is allowed to do. If the portal's own access is wrong, nobody's permissions matter — the portal cannot read the data to show them.
That is why it is worth checking first when the problem affects everybody.