> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.introw.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Launch the portal and run the first two weeks

> Take a portal from published to partners actually using it: check readiness, launch to a pilot, chase the partners who never opened it, then widen.

> For the person who built the program and now has to get partners into it.

Publishing is not launching, and launching is not adoption.
Roughly half of a program's partners do something in the month their portal opens, and about half of those stop within three months.
That drop is not a portal problem.
It happens because launch is usually one email and then silence, so the partners who did not open it the first time never hear again.
This guide is the two weeks that fix it: a readiness check, a pilot rather than a full send, and a specific action on days 1, 3, 7 and 14.

## What you'll achieve

A launch you can measure: every invited partner reachable, a pilot that proves the portal before the whole list sees it, a named follow-up for the partners who never opened it, and two standing segments that keep catching the quiet ones after you stop paying attention.

## Before you start

<Steps>
  <Step title="Publish the experience">
    A partner cannot be invited without an experience assigned.
    See [Build and publish a portal experience](/features/portal/experiences/guides/build-and-publish-a-portal-experience) and [Draft, published and preview](/features/portal/experiences/guides/draft-publish-and-preview).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Unlock the portal">
    Partners cannot reach it until it has a subdomain or a verified custom domain.
    Do this before the invitations go out, not after.
    See [Connect a custom domain](/features/portal/custom-domains/guides/connect-a-custom-domain).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Decide who the pilot is">
    Three to five partners you have a real relationship with, of one partner type.
    Not your largest partner, and not a random sample.
    You want partners who will tell you the portal is confusing rather than quietly ignoring it.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Steps

### Day 0: check readiness before you send anything

<Steps>
  <Step title="Open the launch flow and read the flags">
    On [Home](https://app.introw.io/home), open **Launch your portal**.
    Every partner is listed, and two warnings can appear against a partner:

    * **No experience** - they have no portal to be invited to. The invitation would land them nowhere.
    * **No contacts enabled** - there is nobody to email. The launch will report success and reach no human.

    Both are warnings rather than blocks, so a launch can be sent straight past them.
    Treat either flag as a stop: fix it, then launch.
    A partner invited to nothing is a partner who has now learned the portal does not work.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Make sure every partner has a contact who can get in">
    Walk the pilot partners and confirm each has at least one contact with access.
    A partner record with no enabled contact is the single most common reason a launch reaches nobody.
    See [Invite partners and their teams](./invite-partners-and-their-teams) and [Map contact portal access](/features/integrations/crm/guides/map-contact-portal-access).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Send it to yourself first">
    Invite yourself, or an internal address, as a contact on a test partner and go through the whole thing as a partner would: the email, the sign-in, the landing tab.
    You are checking three things.
    Does the email look like it comes from you, does sign-in work on the method partners will actually use, and is the first thing on the page an action rather than a wall of text.
    See [Brand email notifications](/features/portal/branding/guides/brand-email-notifications) and [Set up portal access](./set-up-portal-access).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Write the message as a person">
    The **Personal message** is the whole email as far as a partner is concerned.
    Say what the portal is for them, name the one thing you want them to do first, and sign it from the person who owns the relationship.
    A generic launch announcement gets the open rate of a generic launch announcement.
  </Step>
</Steps>

### Day 0: launch to the pilot only

<Steps>
  <Step title="Send to three to five partners">
    Launch to the pilot, not the list.
    Two reasons, and the second is the one people underestimate.

    A pilot contains the damage from anything you got wrong, and it keeps your portal count low while you are still changing things, since giving a partner a portal is what consumes your plan's allowance rather than editing one.
    See what your plan includes at [introw.io/pricing](https://introw.io/pricing).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Tell your own team it is live">
    A partner who replies to the launch email with a question and waits two days has learned something about the program.
    Make sure the people who own these partners know the portal went out and are watching for replies.
    Routing partner activity into a channel your team already reads is the reliable version of this.
    See [Configure the chat integration](/features/integrations/chat/guides/configure-the-chat-integration).
  </Step>
</Steps>

### Days 1 to 14: work the launch

<Steps>
  <Step title="Day 1: confirm it was delivered, not just sent">
    Sent and received are different facts.
    Check the delivery report for the invitation, where **Sent**, **Opened**, **Clicked** and **Bounced** are counted per partner, and treat a bounce as an address to fix today rather than a statistic.
    See [Troubleshoot partner email delivery](/features/engagement/channels/guides/troubleshoot-partner-email-delivery).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Day 3: chase the partners who never opened it">
    This is the highest-value action in the whole launch, and it is the one that is usually skipped.
    A partner who has not opened the invitation has not rejected the portal, they have not seen it.
    Resend with a nudge, from the partner manager rather than from the program, and say the one thing you want them to do.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Day 7: check the invitation, not the portal">
    When a partner has still done nothing after a week, the problem is usually access rather than interest: the invitation went to the wrong person, or to somebody who forwarded it nowhere.
    Confirm the contact you invited is the person who would actually use it, and invite the right one.
    Letting a trusted partner add their own colleagues is the version of this that scales, because they know who should be in it and you do not.
    See [Invite partners and their teams](./invite-partners-and-their-teams).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Day 14: widen only once the pilot is active">
    The gate for the next cohort is behaviour, not time.
    When about half the pilot has done something in the portal, publish to the next group.
    If the pilot is quiet after two weeks, adding forty more partners will not fix it, and it will consume portals proving the same thing again.
    See [Reuse an experience across partner types](/features/portal/experiences/guides/reuse-an-experience) for rolling out to the next type.
  </Step>
</Steps>

### Make the follow-up standing, not remembered

<Steps>
  <Step title="Build the two segments that watch for you">
    Attention fades in about three weeks, which is roughly when the activity decline starts.
    Two dynamic segments turn that into a standing list rather than something you have to remember: one holding the partners who have gone quiet, one holding the partners still engaged.
    Because they re-evaluate themselves, a partner who comes back leaves the quiet list without anyone maintaining it.
    See [Re-activate inactive partners](/features/partners/segments/guides/re-activate-inactive-partners).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Wire a re-engagement sequence to the quiet segment">
    Point a workflow at the quiet segment so the nudge goes out when a partner goes silent rather than when someone notices a quarter later.
    See [Re-engage quiet partners](/features/automation/workflows/guides/re-engage-quiet-partners).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Give partners a reason to come back">
    A portal with no new content has nothing to return for.
    An announcement cadence and a journey that reveals the next step are what make a second visit happen.
    See [Send an announcement](/features/engagement/announcements/guides/send-an-announcement) and [Build a progressive onboarding path](/features/partners/onboarding/guides/build-a-progressive-onboarding-path).
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Verify it worked

The number that matters is not portals created, it is partners who did something.
Two weeks in, about half the pilot should have visited, and at least one should have registered a deal, opened an asset or completed a task.

Read it per partner rather than in aggregate.
Open a pilot partner's record and check their activity, since one enthusiastic partner can carry a program average while four are untouched.
See [Read a partner's analytics](/features/reporting/partner-analytics/guides/read-a-partners-analytics) and [Organize the partners list](/features/partners/partner-management/guides/organize-the-partners-list) to keep last activity as a column you scan.

If the pilot is silent, the cause is almost always one of three things, in this order: the invitation reached the wrong person, the portal opens on something that is not an action, or there is nothing in it a partner needs this week.
None of them is fixed by inviting more partners.

## Related

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Invite partners and their teams" icon="user-plus" href="./invite-partners-and-their-teams">
    Getting the right people in.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Re-activate inactive partners" icon="rotate-right" href="/features/partners/segments/guides/re-activate-inactive-partners">
    The standing lists that catch the quiet ones.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Draft, published and preview" icon="eye" href="/features/portal/experiences/guides/draft-publish-and-preview">
    What partners can see before you launch.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Implementation reference" icon="screwdriver-wrench" href="../technical">
    Full configuration options.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>