SFMC Admin Series: Part 1 — User Setup

So you’ve taken the leap and purchased a brand new SFMC account… Cheers! Now, you’re looking to get your account up and running. If you don’t have experience with SFMC migrations or administration, it can be a daunting task to say the least.

In this blog series, we’ll review the necessary steps needed to set up your new SFMC instance and be ready to send your first marketing communication.

Up first… User Setup!

Creating users in Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC) is an essential step in managing your account. By creating different user and assigning them specific roles, you can assign specific permissions to each user based on their job responsibilities.

USER SETUP PROCESS

STEP 1 — NAVIGATE TO THE SETUP PAGE
The first step in setting up users in SFMC is to navigate to the Setup page. From the homepage, click on the top-right corner dropdown icon of the screen, and select “Setup” from the dropdown menu.

STEP 2 — CREATE A NEW USER
Once you are on the Setup page, search for “Users” within the left-hand search bar and select Users under Users > Roles. Then, click on the “Create” button located in the top-left corner of the Users section navigation menu.

STEP 3 — ENTER THE USER INFORMATION
Fill out the required user information (Name, Reply/Notification Email Address, Username, etc.) and click the top-left “Save” button to create your user.

If you have SSO enabled, there will be an additional SSO section that will need to be completed:

STEP 4 — ASSIGN THE USER A ROLE
The following are five different user roles and their respective permissions:

1. Marketing Cloud Administrator: This user has full access to all Marketing Cloud functionality except Email Studio. This includes creating new users, managing roles and permissions, and managing apps, channels, and tools.
2. Marketing Channel Manager: This user has the ability to create and execute cross-channel marketing campaigns, generate reports, but cannot create new users or manage roles and permissions.
3. Marketing Cloud Security Administrator: This user manages security settings as well as activity alerts and monitoring. This should be assigned to those who determine user access and work within the security section of Marketing Cloud.
4. Marketing Content Editor/Publisher: This user is limited to creating and deploying journey messages. This user will not have access to reporting features.
5. Marketing Cloud Viewer: This user has view-only access to Marketing Cloud functionalities, and cannot make any changes or modifications.

STEP 5 — ASSIGN ADDITIONAL ROLES
In addition to the aforementioned roles, there are 5 additional roles that can be assigned to a user. These are legacy roles specifically pertainig to Email Studio during the ExactTarget era:

1. Administrator
2. Analyst
3. Content Creator
4. Data Manager
5. Distributed Sending User

You can edit the permissions for these roles but cannot edit the Standard roles listed in Step 4. It is recommended that you open each Marketing Cloud role and note which permissions are preselected for you prior to assigning them to additional users.

SUPER USERS — Users who need to have access to all permissions should have both “Marketing Cloud Administrator” (Standard) and “Administrator” (legacy) roles assigned.

[CONTINGENT] STEP 5B — ASSIGN BUSINESS UNITS
Navigate to the Users page, select the new user and click “Manage Business Units”:

Here, you’ll be able to select the Default Business Unit along with the Associated Business Units this user should have access to.

STEP 6 — SAVE AND CONFIRM

Once all required information has been entered and permissions assigned, click the “Save” button. Then, test the user’s access by logging in to the user’s account and verifying that they have access to the appropriate functionalities.