Deploy Your Community with the Metadata API

Use the Metadata API to move your community from one Salesforce org to another. Set up and test your community in your test environment, and then retrieve the community’s data and deploy it to your production org.

Available in: Salesforce Classic (not available in all orgs) and Lightning Experience

Available in: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions

You can use the Metadata API to move Lightning communities and Salesforce Tabs + Visualforce communities.

The following metadata types combine to define a community. To successfully migrate a community, use the Metadata API retrieve call to retrieve XML file representations of your org’s components.

Network—Represents a community. Contains administration settings, such as page override, email, and membership configurations.
CustomSite—Contains the domain and page setting information, including indexPage, siteAdmin, and URL definitions.
SiteDotCom—Contains the community site layout.

For additional information on these metadata types and instructions on migrating data, see the Metadata API Developer Guide and the Ant Migration Tool Guide.

Tips and Considerations

Before migrating data to another org, enable Communities in the destination org and enter the same domain name that you used in your sandbox org to avoid getting an error.
For each community, the network component has a unique name and URL path prefix. When you retrieve the network component, the generated XML file name is based on the name of the network. When migrating, the API looks at the file name and if it exists, updates the community. If it doesn’t exist, the API creates a community. If someone changes the community name in the sandbox and then tries to migrate, they see an error because the API is trying to create a community with the existing path prefix.
Examine the XML file for CustomSite to make sure that all dependencies are brought over. If any are missing, explicitly state them in the XML file.
In addition to the Network, CustomSite, and SiteDotCom components, include all the other components required by your community, such as custom objects, custom fields, custom Lightning components, and Apex classes.
If you rename a community in Administration | Settings, make sure that the source and target communities have matching values for the picassoSite and site attributes in the Network component.
If there are any changes to the guest user profile, include the profile as part of the community migration.
When you migrate user profiles, users are added to the community in the production org. Emails are then sent to members in the same way as for any new community.

Sample Template

The following sample contains all of the fields that you can migrate through the Metadata API.

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<Network xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
3    <allowInternalUserLogin>true</allowInternalUserLogin>
4    <allowMembersToFlag>true</allowMembersToFlag>
5    <allowedExtensions>txt,png,jpg,jpeg,pdf,doc,csv</allowedExtensions>
6    <caseCommentEmailTemplate>unfiled$public/ContactFollowUpSAMPLE</caseCommentEmailTemplate>
7    <changePasswordTemplate>unfiled$public/CommunityChangePasswordEmailTemplate</changePasswordTemplate>
8    </communityRoles>
9    <disableReputationRecordConversations>true</disableReputationRecordConversations>
10    <emailSenderAddress>admin@myorg.com</emailSenderAddress>
11    <emailSenderName>MyCommunity</emailSenderName>
12    <enableCustomVFErrorPageOverrides>true</enableCustomVFErrorPageOverrides>
13    <enableDirectMessages>true</enableDirectMessages>
14    <enableGuestChatter>true</enableGuestChatter>
15    <enableGuestFileAccess>false</enableGuestFileAccess>
16    <enableInvitation>false</enableInvitation>
17    <enableKnowledgeable>true</enableKnowledgeable>
18    <enableNicknameDisplay>true</enableNicknameDisplay>
19    <enablePrivateMessages>false</enablePrivateMessages>
20    <enableReputation>true</enableReputation>
21    <enableShowAllNetworkSettings>true</enableShowAllNetworkSettings>
22    <enableSiteAsContainer>true</enableSiteAsContainer>
23    <enableTalkingAboutStats>true</enableTalkingAboutStats>
24    <enableTopicAssignmentRules>true</enableTopicAssignmentRules>
25    <enableTopicSuggestions>true</enableTopicSuggestions>
26    <enableUpDownVote>true</enableUpDownVote>
27    <forgotPasswordTemplate>unfiled$public/CommunityForgotPasswordEmailTemplate</forgotPasswordTemplate>
28    <gatherCustomerSentimentData>false</gatherCustomerSentimentData>
29    <lockoutTemplate>unfiled$public/CommunityLockoutEmailTemplate</lockoutTemplate>
30    <maxFileSizeKb>51200</maxFileSizeKb>
31    <navigationLinkSet>
32        <navigationMenuItem>
33            <label>Topics</label>
34            <position>0</position>
35            <publiclyAvailable>true</publiclyAvailable>
36            <target>ShowMoreTopics</target>
37            <type>NavigationalTopic</type>
38        </navigationMenuItem>
39    </navigationLinkSet>
40    <networkMemberGroups>
41        <permissionSet>MyCommunity_Permissions</permissionSet>
42        <profile>Admin</profile>
43    </networkMemberGroups>
44    <networkPageOverrides>
45        <changePasswordPageOverrideSetting>VisualForce</changePasswordPageOverrideSetting>
46        <forgotPasswordPageOverrideSetting>Designer</forgotPasswordPageOverrideSetting>
47        <homePageOverrideSetting>Designer</homePageOverrideSetting>
48        <loginPageOverrideSetting>Designer</loginPageOverrideSetting>
49        <selfRegProfilePageOverrideSetting>Designer</selfRegProfilePageOverrideSetting>
50    </networkPageOverrides>
51    <picassoSite>MyCommunity1</picassoSite>
52    <selfRegistration>true</selfRegistration>
53    <sendWelcomeEmail>true</sendWelcomeEmail>
54    <site>MyCommunity</site>
55    <status>Live</status>
56    <tabs>
57        <defaultTab>home</defaultTab>
58        <standardTab>Chatter</standardTab>
59    </tabs>
60    <urlPathPrefix>mycommunity</urlPathPrefix>
61    <welcomeTemplate>unfiled$public/CommunityWelcomeEmailTemplate</welcomeTemplate>
62</Network>

Sample package.xml Manifest File

A manifest file defines the components that you’re trying to retrieve. The following sample shows a package.xml manifest file for retrieving all the components of a community.

1<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
2<Package xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
3    <types>
4        <members>*</members>
5        <name>Network</name>
6    </types>
7    <types>
8        <members>*</members>
9        <name>CustomSite</name>
10    </types>
11    <types>
12        <members>*</members>
13        <name>SiteDotCom</name>
14    </types>
15    <types>
16        <members>*</members>
17        <name>CustomTab</name>
18    </types>
19    <types>
20        <members>*</members>
21        <name>CustomObject</name>
22    </types>
23    <types>
24        <members>*</members>
25        <name>ApexClass</name>
26    </types>
27    <types>
28        <members>*</members>
29        <name>ApexPage</name>
30    </types>
31    <types>
32        <members>*</members>
33        <name>ApexComponent</name>
34    </types>
35    <types>
36        <members>*</members>
37        <name>Portal</name>
38    </types>
39    <types>
40        <members>*</members>
41        <name>Profile</name>
42    </types>
43    <types>
44        <members>*</members>
45        <name>Document</name>
46    </types>
47    <version>43.0</version>
48</Package>

Lightning Communities Developer Guide

Deploy Your Community with the Metadata API

Tips and Considerations

Sample Template

Sample package.xml Manifest File

See Also