Precursive supports several ways to bring people outside your own Salesforce org into a Project - each suited to a different relationship and level of trust. This article lays out all of them side by side, so you can choose the right one before you start configuring anything.

The Five Patterns at a Glance

Internal Salesforce User

Project Managers, Resource Managers, and Individual Contributors operating inside your own Salesforce org, with full access to Project Management, Resource Management, Revenue Management, and Billing. No Experience Cloud involved - this is standard Salesforce licensing and sharing.

Contractor Workspace

Individual contractors and consultants who need to log time and manage their own tasks. Technically, this is the exact same setup as Partner Workspace below - same license (Customer Community Plus), same permission set group, same profile, same PAL-scoped access. The distinction is entirely about the use case: an individual contractor working a defined scope of tasks versus a delivery partner organisation running a larger piece of the project. Worth documenting separately for that reason, even though nothing is configured differently.

Partner Workspace

Subcontractors and delivery partners who work alongside you on a project - they log time, manage Tasks, and need Resource-level participation, but don't need full Salesforce access. Runs on Experience Cloud with a Customer Community Plus license, scoped by Project Access Level (PAL) rather than Sharing Sets.

Customer Workspace

Your end customer's own people (Contacts, not Resources) collaborating on their own delivery Projects through a branded portal. Runs on Experience Cloud with a Customer Community or Customer Community Login license, scoped through Sharing Sets tied to the Contact's Account rather than PALs.

Guest / External Sharing

A frictionless, read-only link for anyone who needs quick visibility with zero login. No Salesforce or Community license required - the URL itself is the access credential, scoped to whatever Project or Phase records were explicitly shared.

Choosing the Right Pattern

• Need full Precursive access inside your own org? Internal Salesforce User.
• An external person needs to log time and act as a Resource on tasks? Partner Workspace if they're part of a delivery partner organisation, Contractor Workspace if they're an individual contractor - same underlying setup either way, the distinction is about who they are, not how it's configured.
• Your customer needs to collaborate but should never be a Resource? Customer Workspace.
• You just need to share a read-only view with no login friction? Guest / External Sharing - keep in mind the security trade-off below.

Side-by-Side Comparison

	Internal	Contractor	Partner	Customer	Guest
Platform	Salesforce	Experience Cloud	Experience Cloud	Experience Cloud	Experience Cloud
License	Standard/Platform	Customer Community Plus	Customer Community Plus	Customer Community / Login	Guest - none
Is a Resource?	Yes	Yes	Yes	No (Contact)	No
Sharing model	OWDs + Role Hierarchy	PAL-scoped	PAL-scoped, private sharing	Sharing Sets + Account	Shared flag only, link-based
Time logging	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Write access	Full	Limited (own tasks)	PAL-scoped	Limited tasks	Read-only
Authentication	Required	Required	Required	Required	None - link only

⚠ Guest / External Sharing links can be indexed by search engines if not configured with a robots meta tag. Where a customer is sensitive to that, Customer Workspace is the safer alternative for the same read-only use case.

Where to Go Next

Each pattern below has its own use-case guide and setup steps. Two articles apply across multiple patterns: the sharing mechanics behind External Sharing and Customer Workspace are identical, and field access controls the Workspace components the same way regardless of pattern.

Pattern	Use case & setup
Partner Workspace	Partner Workspace and Build your Partner Workspace Experience
Contractor Workspace	Contractor Workspace (uses the same Experience Cloud build as Partner Workspace)
Customer Workspace	Customer Workspace (overview), plus For Implementations, For Managed Services, and Granting Access
Guest / External Sharing	External Sharing

Applies to Customer Workspace and External Sharing both: Sharing Projects and Records with Customers.

Applies to every pattern: How Field Access Affects Workspace Components.

Related Resources

• Partner Workspace
• Contractor Workspace
• Customer Workspace
• External Sharing
• Sharing Projects and Records with Customers
• How Field Access Affects Workspace Components