A Partner in Files.com represents an external organization, such as a vendor, client, agency, or supplier, that exchanges files with your site.

Partners with the Host or Host & Guest role have a root folder that scopes their users' access, permissions that apply to all of those users, and settings that control what Partner Admins can do. A Guest Partner created through Connected Sites represents access to another site's shared folders and has no local root folder, users, permissions, or channels. It must be explicitly changed to Host & Guest with a root folder before you can configure those capabilities.

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 and Workspace 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 and Workspace 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 on your site.

A Guest connected through Connected Sites can make these folders available to its own users and Partners and use them in its workflows. Those features belong to the Guest site and follow its settings. Every operation that reaches your site's files requires the corresponding Host Partner permission. The Guest cannot include Host files in a Share Link because the Host Partner cannot hold Share permission. Copies already made into the Guest's own folders remain under the Guest's control.

Partner Users can still manage their own arrival notifications on folders they can read, so the absence of History permission does not prevent them from subscribing to deliveries.

Partner Channels

Partner Channels set up a structured exchange path within a Partner's root folder. Choose delivery to the partner, collection from the partner, or both. Files.com creates the exchange folders in the chosen layout and configures their permissions automatically. A one-way Channel can use its folder directly to preserve an existing integration path.

Partner Admin Settings

Partner Admins can edit, enable, disable, and delete accounts within their own Partner. Editing includes users' email addresses, profile details, authentication methods, and access expiration dates. That authority comes with Partner Admin access and remains available when all Partner Admin Settings are disabled. These settings let Site Administrators and Workspace Administrators delegate additional capabilities.

Changing an email address also changes where password recovery emails go. Turning off Allow credential changes prevents direct password changes, but does not prevent a Partner Admin from redirecting recovery to another mailbox. Grant Partner Admin access only to people you trust to manage those accounts and their recovery channels. Delegated Administration explains the related controls.

Allow user creation gives Partner Admins the ability to create users for their Partner. This lets external teams onboard new people without asking your Site Administrators or Workspace Administrators to create each account.

Allow credential changes lets Partner Admins set or reset passwords, reset enrolled 2FA methods, and manage SSH keys for their Partner Users. This lets the partner handle credential changes and lost second factors without asking your Site Administrators.

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.

Partner's Responsible Party

The Responsible Party identifies an internal owner for a 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. A Responsible Party can also receive copies of the notifications that the platform sends to those users, giving the internal owner visibility into events that affect them. A Responsible Party set on the Partner covers all of its users, and an individual Partner User can also have its own, which overrides it.

Assigning a Responsible Party is optional. A Responsible Party can be either a single internal user or an internal group. Because the role represents ownership inside your organization, Partner Users are not eligible, including Partner Admins. The Responsible Party assignment does not grant the user or group any additional access to the Partner's root folder data or settings.

Only Site Administrators and Workspace Administrators can view or assign a Responsible Party. Partner Admins cannot do so at either level, because choosing a Responsible Party means selecting from your site's internal users and groups, which would expose the names of your internal staff and teams to an external user.

Send Email Copies

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

When Send Email Copies 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.

Copies are sent as separate emails addressed to the Responsible Party. When the Responsible Party is an internal group, each member receives their own copy.

Because each copy is its own message, the Partner User cannot see that a copy was sent or who received it, and every copy is recorded as a separate entry in the Outbound Emails log.

Responsible Party for an Individual Partner User

Internal ownership often sits below the Partner level, so an individual Partner User can have its own Responsible Party, which overrides the one set on the Partner. A Responsible Party assigned this way always receives copies of the emails sent to that user, whether or not Send Email Copies is enabled for the Partner.

Use a per-user assignment when one Partner represents a single external organization whose users are owned by different people inside your company. A large client might have its users mapped to separate application teams, with a different internal relationship manager accountable for each team. Assigning the Responsible Party per user gives each manager visibility into the emails sent to the users they own, without breaking one client relationship into several Partners to get that separation.

When a Partner User has no Responsible Party of its own, the Partner's Responsible Party applies and is shown as that user's effective owner, receiving copies only while Send Email Copies is enabled for the Partner.

Eligible users and groups are limited to the Partner User's Workspace, so a Responsible Party assignment never crosses a Workspace boundary.

IP Whitelist

Site Administrators and Workspace 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