Admin Guide - Inspire Planner External Project Portal

Last Modified On: October 30, 2026

Welcome to the Inspire Planner External Portal, a secure collaboration space that extends project visibility and engagement beyond your internal Salesforce users. The External Portal allows external stakeholders, customers, partners, and project participants to access relevant project information, collaborate with project teams, and stay aligned on project progress — all from a centralized, branded experience.
 

With the External Portal, organizations can provide external users with access to key project features while maintaining control over permissions and visibility. External users can view project schedules, track assigned tasks, participate in discussions, review project updates, and collaborate with internal teams without requiring full Salesforce access.
 

The External Portal experience can be customized to meet your organization’s collaboration needs. Administrators can enable premium collaboration features, including:

• Custom Object Tabs – Provide access to additional Salesforce records and information relevant to external users.
• Chatter – Enable project conversations and updates directly within the portal.
• Task Checklists – Allow users to view and manage checklist items associated with project tasks.
• File Sharing – Allow users to access and collaborate on project-related files.
   

This guide provides administrators with an overview of the Inspire Planner External Portal, explains the available configuration options and features, and outlines the steps required to enable, configure, and manage portal functionality for external users. It also covers setting up portal access, configuring collaboration features, and understanding how external users interact with projects, schedules, tasks, and shared information.
 

Please note the following:

• If the Salesforce Administrator who enabled the Inspire Planner external project portal leaves the organization or if you need to change the Salesforce Administrator, you must first disable the feature and have the new Salesforce Admin re-enable it. The new Salesforce Admin should have an Inspire Planner License and the Inspire Planner Administrator permission set assigned.
   
• Only waterfall Projects can be shared externally in the Inspire Planner External Portal. Agile and Task List Project types are not supported.
   
• The external project portal can only be enabled for production environments.

Recommended Setup for External Project Portal Usage

• All portal activity runs through the user who originally authenticated/enabled the portal.

• That user effectively acts as an integration user - all queries and updates are tied to them, even if multiple people are viewing schedules.
   
• Best practice: we recommend that you enable the external project portal with a dedicated user, so usage isn’t tied to an individual’s account.

Required Permissions

To enable the Inspire Planner External Project Portal, you must be a Salesforce Administrator with an Inspire Planner License and the Inspire Planner Administrator permission set assigned. The administrator who enables this feature must retain the Inspire Planner License.

Enable the External Project Portal

The Inspire Planner External Project Portal must be enabled before external users can access project information and collaborate with internal teams. This section outlines the steps for enabling the portal.
 

Once enabled, administrators can configure the portal experience and control which collaboration features are available to external users based on their organization’s needs.

1. Go to the App Launcher and enter "Inspire Planner Settings" in the Quick Find box. Then click on Inspire Planner Settings.
    

2. Locate the setting called Enable sharing of projects to external contacts and toggle it to Enabled to allow projects to be shared with external contacts through the Inspire Planner External Project Portal.

3. A dialog window will appear requesting access. Click Allow to grant the required permissions and continue enabling the External Project Portal.
    

A confirmation message will appear onscreen to indicate that the External Project Portal has been successfully enabled.

Premium Features

The External Portal now supports four premium collaboration features that can be switched on per organization: Custom Object Tabs, Chatter, Task Checklists, and File Sharing.

Access to each feature is controlled by two independent switches, and a feature is active only when both are on:

• An entitlement provisioned by Inspire Planner for your organization, and
• An opt-in setting controlled by your Salesforce administrator. This lets your organization adopt features on your own schedule, even after they have been provisioned. 

These features require a Premium+ Success Plan. Please contact customer.success@inspireplanner.com to have these features enabled for your organization.
 

Troubleshooting Common Issues

If you encounter an issue while using the Inspire Planner External Portal, this section provides helpful troubleshooting steps and solutions for common problems. 

Issue:

When the external collaborator (contact) logs into the External Portal, they only see the following error message: “Error: expired access/refresh token.”

Resolution:

1. Go to Setup --> Network Access.
    
2. Under Trusted IP Ranges, create a new entry with the following information:
   
   Start IP Address: 50.17.160.202
   End IP Address: 50.17.160.202
   Description: Inspire Planner External Project Portal (optional)
    
3. Navigate to Inspire Planner Settings Console and disable the “Enable sharing of projects to external contacts” feature, then enable it again.