Partner contact roles in the portal are now segments. This page explains what changed, why, and answers the questions that come up most. Nothing you set up was lost: your existing roles were migrated into equivalent segments for you.Shipped in the June 2026 release.
Parts of this page have been superseded. In August 2026, permissions and notifications moved onto one organisation-wide default that segments override only when you ask them to. The sections below on default access and on how overlapping segments resolve have been updated to match, and two footguns this page warned about are gone. See Segment defaults and overrides for the current model.
What changed
Segments now do what per-contact roles used to do. A segment is a reusable audience of partners and contacts, built either from live filters (a dynamic segment) or a hand-picked list (a static one). Segments already targeted portal tabs, content, courses, and announcements. Now they also carry the access, permissions, notifications, and task assignment that used to sit on a role.Why segments
A role was a single label on a contact, set by hand. A segment is a bigger idea, and it is what lets a partner program scale:- Many dimensions, kept live. A segment can combine tier, region, certification, lifecycle stage, product line, and real partner behavior, and a dynamic segment updates itself as that data changes in your CRM. You target the partners you actually mean, and the audience stays right without anyone maintaining it. This is the CRM as the system of record deciding who sees what.
- One concept, used everywhere. The same segment drives portal tabs, content, courses, announcements, notifications, permissions, and tasks. You define an audience once and reuse it across the whole product, instead of setting up targeting feature by feature. Learn it once, apply it everywhere, which keeps the program cheap to run.
- Built for scale. Because segments are filters over your CRM data, they run a program of thousands of partners and tens of thousands of contacts with no one hand-assigning anyone. The program grows and the targeting keeps up on its own, which is what makes segments enterprise-grade.
Nothing was lost. Your existing roles were migrated into equivalent segments automatically, including the portal tab and content restrictions that pointed at them.
How permissions and notifications resolve
Since August 2026 this resolves through one cascade: your organisation-wide All partners · Default, then the segments that opted in to overriding it, then the contact’s own opt-outs.- Invite colleagues and See all shared records come from the default, and an override segment can change either one for its members in either direction. When a contact matches several override segments that disagree, the most permissive one wins on both: one segment that grants a capability is enough.
- Notifications are one recipients value per event: all partners, collaborating only, or disabled. Same cascade, and the wider audience wins when overrides overlap.
- Portal content (tabs, assets, courses, forms, reports) - a union, unchanged. Visible if the contact is in any segment it is shared with, regardless of override switches.
The rule to remember: your baseline restrictions belong on the default, and you no longer have to mirror them into every segment for them to hold. Full detail: Layer segments to progressively unlock capabilities.
Set up a default access level (your old “default role”)
There is no “default role” anymore, and since August 2026 there is no default segment either. Its replacement is a layer of its own: All partners · Default, pinned above your segment list.1
Open the default
On Segments, choose Edit defaults on the pinned All partners · Default row. There is nothing to create.
2
Put your baseline on it
On the Permissions tab set the tightest posture for new partners (for example Invite team members off, Collaboration restricted on). On the Notifications tab keep only the essentials on.
3
Layer the rest on top
Each more specific segment changes this baseline only when you switch on Override the default for this segment, so the default is the one place your baseline restrictions belong.
Keep driving contact roles from your CRM
If you used to sync a contact’s role to a CRM property, keep doing exactly that. The role still lives in your CRM as the source of truth. What changed is that a segment reads it, rather than the role gating access directly.1
Map the role property
Open a partner, go to the People tab, select Configure, then on Contact role select Sync and map Role property to the CRM contact field that holds the role. See Drive contact portal access and roles from your CRM.
2
Build a dynamic segment on it
Create a dynamic segment whose audience filters on that contact field. The segment reproduces role-based access and targeting, and updates itself whenever the value changes in your CRM.
See which segments a contact is in
Open a partner and go to the People tab. The Segments column shows the segments each contact belongs to, and opening a contact shows their segments on the detail panel. This is the per-contact view of membership, the reverse of the usage count shown on a segment itself.Deleting a segment is safe
Deleting a segment never silently widens access, but check where it is used first, because a segment is often used in more than one place.- Before you delete, Introw shows where the segment is used. Review it, since the same segment may also gate tabs, assets, courses, or notifications, and those stop too.
- Deleting archives the segment first, so you can restore it within the retention window (currently 90 days) before it is permanently removed.
- If the segment was the only audience on a published announcement, that announcement is unpublished rather than sent to every partner. Introw never widens a published announcement to everyone.
- If the announcement had other segments too, it stays published to those.
Segments you use only to target an announcement
This page originally warned that a segment created purely for targeting would quietly grant its members more than you intended, because every segment carried permission and notification opinions that won the merge.That footgun is gone. Since August 2026 a segment carries no permission or notification opinion until you switch on Override the default for this segment, so creating one to target an announcement has no side effects at all. You no longer have to mirror your baseline into a targeting segment.
Learn more
Segments
What segments are and everything they drive.
Set up and configure segments
Audience, permissions, notifications, and usage.
Layer segments to progressively unlock
Exactly how overlapping segments resolve.
Restrict a tab to segments
Show a portal tab only to the segments it is meant for.
Control who gets notified
Scope notifications with segments.
Announcements
Target announcements at the right segments.