A Partner in Files.com is a container for external organizations (such as vendors, clients, agencies, and suppliers) that need access to your site.

Each Partner has a list of associated Partner Users, a root folder that scopes their access, permissions that apply to all of their users, and settings that control what Partner Admins can do. Internal Notes help Site Administrators track information about each Partner, and Tags let User Lifecycle Rules target Partner Users for automatic removal when inactive.

Identifying Information

Each Partner has a Name and Internal Notes. Only Site Administrators can view Internal Notes.

Root Folder and Permissions

The Root folder restricts all of a Partner's users to one section of your site and prevents them from accessing anything outside of the Root folder path. Partner Users see that folder as the top of the site through the Partner Root File System Layout, which always applies, regardless of how the user connects (web interface, API, SFTP, or any other supported protocol).

Site Administrators grant permissions to the Partner rather than to individual Partner Users. Partner Users inherit only the permissions granted to their Partner. Permissions for a Partner can only grant access to paths contained within the Partner's root folder. Partners cannot be granted admin, sharing, or history permissions.

Partner Admin Settings

Partner Admin Settings control what administrative actions Partner Admins can perform for their organization. These options let Site Administrators decide how much self-management to delegate while keeping overall site governance intact. When none of these settings are enabled, Partner Admins behave the same as other Partner Users.

Allow user creation gives Partner Admins the ability to add and remove users for their Partner. This lets external teams manage their own accounts without depending on your Site Administrators for every user change.

Allow credential changes lets Partner Admins reset passwords and manage SSH keys for their Partner Users. Granting this permission lets Partner Admins handle access updates securely and immediately.

Allow bypassing 2FA lets Partner Admins change whether individual Partner Users are required to configure Two-factor authentication.

Allow Providing GPG Keys grants Partner Admins access to the GPG Key Manager, so they can provide the keys to be used for automatic encryption, decryption, or recryption. This supports secure, automated file exchange workflows while maintaining data confidentiality. Partner Admins can provide their own GPG Keys, but a user with folder admin or site admin rights must configure the GPG settings to use those keys.

Responsible Party

The Responsible Party identifies an internal owner for the Partner relationship. This is typically the employee or team within your organization who manages the day-to-day relationship with the Partner's users and serves as their internal point of contact. With the Carbon Copy Emails to Responsible Party setting enabled, the Responsible Party also receives copies of notifications that the platform sends to the Partner's users, giving an internal owner visibility into events that affect those users.

Assigning a Responsible Party is optional. A Partner's Responsible Party can be either a single internal user or an internal group; Partner Users are not eligible to be a Responsible Party. The Responsible Party assignment does not grant the user or group any additional access to the Partner's root folder data or settings.

Carbon Copy Emails to Responsible Party

The Carbon Copy Emails to Responsible Party setting controls whether notifications sent to the Partner's users are also routed to the Responsible Party. A Responsible Party must be assigned before Carbon Copy Emails can be enabled.

When Carbon Copy Emails is enabled, copies are sent for any notification the platform delivers to the Partner's users, including account- and credential-related emails and folder activity notifications delivered to Partner Users.

When the Responsible Party is a single user, or an internal group containing one or two users, copies are delivered via CC. When the Responsible Party is an internal group of three or more users, copies are delivered via BCC.

IP Whitelist

Site Administrators can add IP Whitelist entries to a Partner's settings. Any Partner User can connect from any address in the list.

Using the Partner's IP Whitelist instead of adding those addresses to the site-wide IP Whitelist narrows the scope of the allowance. The allowed IP addresses are only applied to that Partner's users, and when the Partner is removed from your site, those IP addresses are automatically removed with it.

Partner Structure