Getting Started with Journeybee

This checklist is for workspace admins setting up Journeybee for the first time. Follow the steps in order to avoid redoing stages, fields, portal access or commission settings later.

You do not need to configure every feature before launch. Start with the essentials, test everything with one partner, then add optional features as your program grows.

Where to find it: Almost everything below lives under Settings, reached from your avatar in the navigation bar.

Who can use this: Admins. Some settings pages, including Portal Settings and Modules & AI, are only visible to admins.

Setup checklist

• Confirm your partner types

• Complete your company details

• Invite your internal team

• Review partner and deal stages

• Add categories, tiers and custom fields

• Apply your branding

• Review your portal rooms and access rules

• Add partner-facing resources

• Set up optional workflows, notifications and integrations

• Test the experience with one partner

• Invite the rest of your partner network

1. Confirm your partner types

Go to Settings, then Modules & AI.

Journeybee has three partner types:

• Referral: partners who send you leads and opportunities.

• Reseller: partners who sell your products or services.

• Distributor: partners who manage resellers of their own, in a two-tier program. Distributor requires Reseller to be on as well, since the resellers underneath a distributor are reseller partnerships.

You must have at least one of Referral or Reseller enabled. Referral and Reseller you can switch on and off yourself; Distributor sits under Managed by Journeybee, so contact support to enable it.

Partner types drive the stages, categories, tiers, custom fields and portal rooms available everywhere else, so settle them first. See Platform Settings, and for two-tier programs, Distribution Management.

2. Complete your company details

Go to Settings, then Company, and review:

• Company name, website and description

• Contact email and phone number

• Country and currency

• Date and time format

Set your currency before configuring commissions or payments. See Company Profile.

Then go to Settings, then Team, and invite the colleagues who will run your partner program. Give each person the role they need rather than sharing an admin account. See Team Management.

3. Review your program structure

Partner and deal stages

Go to Settings, then Stages.

Journeybee creates default stages for new workspaces, so this is usually a review rather than a build.

• Partners tracks the relationship: Invited, Onboarding, Published and so on.

• Deals tracks an opportunity: New, In Progress, Won, Lost.

Match the names to the language your team already uses. Get this right early, because stages are referenced by commissions, workflows and portal access later, and a stage that is in use cannot be deleted. See Stages.

Categories, tiers and tags

Go to Settings, then Categories & Tiers.

• Categories group partners by industry, region or specialisation.

• Tiers represent program levels such as Registered, Silver, Gold or Platinum.

• Tags are flexible labels for filtering and portal access.

Categories and tiers are configured separately per partner type. Only add values your team will actually use. See Categories & Tiers and Tags.

4. Configure your fields

Go to Settings, then Custom Fields.

Review the fields for partners, leads, deals and contacts. Add a custom field only when Journeybee does not already capture what you need.

Each field has three switches:

• Required: the record cannot be saved without a value.

• Hidden: the field is not shown at all. A hidden field is never enforced, even if it is also marked required.

• Shared: the partner can see the field in their portal. Leave it off and the field is internal only.

Use required sparingly. Every required field is one more thing standing between a partner and a submitted lead. See Custom Fields.

5. Apply your branding

Go to Settings, then Branding, and review your brand colours, navigation logo, logo variants, background image and favicon. Use images that stay legible on both light and dark backgrounds. See Branding.

Custom domains are not under Branding. To put the portal on your own web address, go to Settings, then Portal Settings, and use the Custom Domain section. Journeybee shows you the CNAME and TXT records to add, and verification takes a little while after you add them.

Worth doing early: portal branding and the portal access settings stay disabled until a custom domain is connected. See Custom Domains.

6. Review your partner portal

Go to Portals.

Journeybee creates the core rooms for new workspaces, so review what exists before creating anything. Depending on your modules that may include Overview, Leads, Deals, Payments, Projects, Resources, Contacts, Messages, Branding and Shared Files.

For each room, check:

1. Content: does the page tell partners what to do?

2. Status: a room must be Live before partners can use it.

3. Access: everyone, or only certain stages, categories, tiers, tags or named partners?

4. Name: is it clear to someone outside your company?

A partner has to match every access condition on a room. A room with no conditions is available to every eligible partner.

Keep the first version focused. A small portal that is useful beats a large one full of empty pages. See Creating Portal Rooms and Portal Room Types.

7. Add partner-facing resources

Go to Resources and add what partners need: program guides, product information, sales decks, brand assets, training material, campaign templates, legal documents.

Use folders to keep the library browsable. Add files one at a time, or use Bulk Upload for a batch.

Before publishing, check whether the resource should be Shared or internal, whether it is Live or still Draft, which partners can reach it, and whether the title makes sense without internal context. See Creating a Resource.

8. Set up optional workflows

Only configure what your program actually needs.

Forms

Settings, then Forms, for partner application forms and lead capture forms. Configure your custom fields first so submissions collect the right information. See Forms and Embeddable Forms.

Commissions

Settings, then Commissions, if you pay partners for deals. Confirm your currency and deal stages first, since commission rules trigger on stages. See Commissions.

Notifications

Settings, then Notifications. This is where you decide who hears about what: a new lead, a deal moving stage, a message from a partner. Rules can target your team, partners, or both, and can send in-app, by email, or to Slack.

Review this before you invite partners rather than after. The default rules are a sensible starting point, but a partner who submits a lead and hears nothing back assumes it never arrived. See Notifications.

Workflows

Click Workflows in the main navigation if you want work to happen on its own: move a stage, send an email, create a task when a partner passes a certification. Workflows are admin-only. See Workflows.

Integrations

Settings, then Integrations, to connect your CRM, chat, email and payment tools.

Before enabling a sync, decide which system owns each piece of data. That one decision prevents most duplicate records and surprise overwrites. See Integrations.

9. Add a pilot partner

Go to Partners and click Add partner.

A company name and a valid contact email are always required, plus any field your workspace marks required.

Then choose how to start the partnership:

• Create as Offline Partnership adds the partner without inviting anybody.

• Send Invitation creates the partnership and invites the contact to the portal.

Use a trusted partner or an internal test contact for the first one. Set the partner type, stage, category, tier and tags so you are testing the access rules as they will really behave. See Creating a Partner.

10. Test the partner experience

Open the pilot partner and click Go to partner portal.

Check from the partner's side that:

• The invitation arrives and sign-in works.

• Your branding appears.

• Only the rooms you intended are visible.

• Room names and instructions read clearly.

• Shared resources are there and internal ones are not.

• Forms, lead submission and the deal flow work.

• Required fields are reasonable.

• Notifications actually arrive when the partner submits something.

Fix anything you find before inviting the rest of your network. See Partner Onboarding.

11. Launch your program

1. Add or import the next group of partners.

2. Set their stages, categories, tiers and tags.

3. Send invitations in manageable batches.

4. Confirm partners can sign in and find what they need.

5. Use Reports to watch partner, lead and deal activity.

Keep improving the portal from real partner questions. If several partners ask the same thing, the answer belongs in a room or a resource, not in your inbox.

Common setup problems

A partner type or feature is missing

Check Settings, then Modules & AI. Anything under Managed by Journeybee is enabled by support, not by you.

A partner cannot see a portal room

Confirm the room is Live, then check every access condition. The partner must match all of them, and a partnership with no tier will not match a tier-restricted room.

A partner cannot see a resource

Confirm the resource is Shared, set to Live, and available to that partner.

A custom domain is not working

Open Settings, then Portal Settings, and check both DNS records against the values shown. DNS changes do not appear instantly.

You cannot create a partner

Check the company name, the contact email, and every field marked required under Settings, then Custom Fields. A required field on a partner type you are not looking at is a common cause.

Good to know

• Order matters most for the first four steps. Partner types, currency, stages and fields are referenced by everything downstream, and changing them later means revisiting portal access and commissions.

• You can go live with a handful of rooms and one partner type. Everything else can be added while the program runs.

• Set your notification rules before the first real partner arrives, not after the first complaint.