The Ultimate PRM Launch Project Plan: Resources and Timing

Like any other software, PRMs are a big investment. And your boss’s questions don’t go away once you pick a platform. They just get less about budget and more about execution.

When will partners be able to register deals?

Is it connected to our CRM yet?

What’s the testing plan?

Who’s training the team?

What happens if a partner runs into issues?

Without clear answers, it’s easy to lose internal momentum, or worse, credibility. 

Below, we share a sample project plan that’s worked across hundreds of PRM implementations. It lays out what needs to happen when and who should be involved, so you can keep the project moving—and always have a clear answer ready the next time your exec team checks in.

PRM Launch Project Plan – Week 1: Prework

Decide What Modules You Need for an MVP(RM)

Timing: 1-2 days. Don’t spend too much time agonizing over this. It’s better to get your portal up and running, then add more features.

Resources: Partner team

Ideally, you should know what modules you need before you even evaluate PRMs. But there may be modules included in your pricing plan that you’re not sure you need from the get-go.

Our advice? Implement the bare minimum, then iterate.

While you can think you know what partners want and need before you implement your PRM, you can’t possibly predict everything.

The truth is, you won’t know how partners will react until they’re in your Portal. We’ve seen customers be surprised by what partners actually engage with time and again. Things like:

• Unexpected demand for collaboration tools, like Forum
• Very little legal back-and-forth on standard agreements, eliminating the need for a more red-line-heavy e-signature platform
• High adoption of rewards points and SPIFF features

There’s also the fact that you may not be ready to launch everything right away. For example, if you’re not sure you have the internal resources to build a robust training and certification program ahead of your target launch date, work on it behind the scenes while partners get used to the Portal.

The preliminary feedback they give you may even inform how you set up your training program, so it’s worth the wait.

Alert Tangential Teams

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team + any other teams that will be connected to the PRM in some way.

Loop in the teams who’ll need to be part of your launch. For example, you’ll likely need the help of:

• Marketing, to add Portal content, create co-branding guidelines, and work with you on launch announcements.
• IT, to figure out if you need SSO, two-factor authentication, a custom domain, and a way to add a partner application to your company website.
• CRM admins, to help with  partner data migration and CRM integration
• Product, to assist with partner training and certification requirements

Getting everyone on the same page about your PRM launch (and leaving some buffer time in your project plan) can save you, and everyone else, from the headache of major blockers down the line. 

Ask 1-2 Trusted Partners for Help

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team + several partner points of contact

The worst thing you can do is launch your PRM blind. Get your partner managers to think of a few guinea pigs — partners who are excited to test the portal and to provide real, honest feedback.

Make your request early so they block off time and consider offering them something of value to sweeten the deal, like a gift card, early access, or other kind of public recognition. After all, their input will help you refine the experience before it scales.

PRM Launch Project Plan – Week 2: Initial Portal Setup

Configure Portal Settings

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team

Decide on some of the basics. Much of this you’ll already know from running your program — whether you’re using a different PRM right now, or managing everything in email and spreadsheets:

• What your portal is called
• How potential partners will apply to your program, and what it takes for them to get approved
• How partners can get in touch with your team for portal or deal support
• When you’ll prompt partners to update their profiles, and nudge them to log into the portal

You’ll also want to have a sense of how your portal will look and feel. Request a copy of your company’s style guide from your creative team so you can update your PRM’s font, colors, and other branding elements.

And make sure your portal navigation makes sense to partners. For example, if you call the Library module “Resources” when you’re talking to partners, make sure the Library module is called “Resources” in the portal. That way, partners will understand what it is without having to guess.

Nail Down Permissions

Timing: 1-2 days. We recommend starting with an “All Partners” group, and then determining whether you actually need more levels of permission. The more variance in permissions you have, the more variance you have to manage.

Resources: Partner team

Clarify who can view and manage each part of the portal. Will all partners get access to MDF? What about SPIFFs?

You will probably need to go deeper than the module level, too. For instance, should everyone at an organization see their teammates’ deal registrations, or just their own? Should team members be able to register deals on each others’ behalf?

Your internal teams may need different access as well. Should partner managers just be able to see their partners’ activity or all partner activity? Do sales and marketing teams need access to specific modules?

Getting your permissions right from the jump can avoid a situation where partners (and internal teams) have access to something they should not have — and then you’re on the hook to explain why it’s being taken away.

Solidify Partner Management

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team

Define your partner types (i.e. reseller, affiliate, strategic) and lifecycle stages (identified, qualified, contract, closed won), and determine how agreements will be handled (will partners have to sign before entering the portal?).

If business planning is part of your partner strategy, clarify what that looks like and where those plans will live in the portal. Read more about how to develop sound business plans here.

If you work with distributors, get specific about how they’ll be working with partners, particularly on revenue generating activities. Should they be able to register deals for existing partners? Without specifying a partner? For themselves? 

Can they be able to create partners that don’t exist? And if so, do you need to accept them?

Clarifying these rules up front gives everyone, from your partners to your partner managers to CRM admins, a consistent framework to work from, and prevents deal flow from getting tangled in edge cases down the line.

Build a Strong Home Page

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team + partner marketing

The portal Home Page is the first thing partners will see — so it’s got to (1) highlight the most essential information and (2) prompt partners to act. The best things to put on your home page include:

• Quick links to high-use modules like deal reg or training
• Charts and graphs showing their progress
• New resources partners really want and need
• SPIFF opportunities and other announcements

Be sure to include a brief welcome message (perhaps even a welcome video?) and a clear way to reach support to engage and support new partners who may not know their way around the portal yet. 

PRM Launch Project Plan – Week 3: Content and Partner Marketing

Upload Content to the Library

Timing: 3-4 days. Uploading content to the library isn’t hard, but it can take a long time depending on how much you have, so we recommend getting this done first.

Resources: Partner team + partner marketing

Most PRMs will let you upload:

• Articles
• Links
• PDFs
• Videos

Make a list of the foundational content that partners will need, like pricing sheets, product overviews, and case studies, and upload those first. Be mindful of how they’re presented, too.

Your folder structure and filters should immediately make sense to partners, not just to you. Use  thumbnails to aid discoverability (you may need to work with marketing to get those created) and add viewability dates for time-sensitive content (SPIFFs, early product release material).

Note: Some PRMs, like Channeltivity, give you the option to bulk upload your content. Reach out to your CSM to see what they can do to accelerate the upload process.

Add Co-Brandable Collateral

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team + partner marketing

Usually decks and one-pagers are the best candidates for co-branded collateral, so start with those. Know where partner logos should go, what text should go on co-branded collateral (i.e., a partner’s company name, and potentially a POC’s email address), and whether partners should be able to make any other edits they want to that piece of content.

Make sure naming conventions are intuitive here too so that partners can quickly find what they need and apply their branding without confusion.

Customize Your To-Partner Marketing

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team + partner marketing

If your PRM comes with an email marketing module, you’ll want to set expectations now for cadence and content ownership. 

• How long will news remain live?
• Who will be writing the announcements (and taking them down)?
• When will to-partner emails get sent out and about what?

Keep it simple now — say 1 partner email per month — so that it’s sustainable. You can always scale up from there.

Organize Your Training & Certification

Timing: 1-2 days

Note: The implementation part should really only take a few days. It’s creating the coursework and evaluations that can take months. You’ll probably want to rope in your enablement, product, and even customer success teams for help with training and cert development.

To set up an enterprise-grade training program, check out: Why You Need Partner Training: How Leading Companies Do It Well.

Resources: Partner team + enablement + product + CS

Great training programs help partners pitch your services, decrease the number of support tickets you get from partner-led deployments, ensure consistent messaging — and ultimately, lead to more closed-won deals. Often, training and certification are required for partners to sell specific products, but they can also be used to gate access to exclusive events or other perks like MDF. 

To get your training and cert off the ground, you’ll need to define the core skills or product knowledge partners need and map those into a set of courses, each with a clear format (PDFs, videos, quizzes) and completion criteria. You should also think about whether you’ll offer downloadable certificates or LinkedIn badges.

Some PRMs, like Channeltivity, have all that functionality built in. But if you plan to use an outside LMS, coordinate with IT and whoever owns licensing to get that set up properly.

PRM Launch Project Plan – Week 4: Revenue Modules

Build Out Deal Registration

Timing: 1-2 days. Like training and cert, the actual recreation of your deal reg submission process should only take a few hours. Working out your approval process and CRM sync can take much longer.

Resources: Partner team

What details does your team needs to evaluate partner-submitted deals? Probably what product(s) the potential customer is interested in, estimated close date, deal size, and account information, at the very least.

Our suggestion? Create the same fields in your PRM that you currently have in your CRM or deal registration form. That will make it easier for partners to follow, easier for your partner managers to approve, and easier to sync with your CRM if you’re going that route.

Think also about partner visibility. Will they be adjusting the stage, or will your team? Can they edit the deal post-submission? Decide who on your team will approve deals and what happens if multiple partners claim the same account.

You’ll also need to determine how deal data flows to your CRM. In most cases, it’s smart to route partner-entered fields into separate custom fields to avoid overwriting what your sales team tracks internally — you don’t want to mess up any dashboards being sent to leadership.

For help configuring an enterprise-level deal reg program, check out: Perfect Your Deal Registration Process in 7 Steps.

Create Your Referral Form

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team

Referrals can be as lightweight or as structured as you need. At a minimum, set clear expectations: 

• What fields need to be filled out on a referral form
• What counts as a qualified referral
• What partners get in return
• How they’ll track progress

Many programs offer a revenue share, but other options — like co-marketing support, event access, or lead reciprocation — can be just as valuable.

Want to make sure your referrals are hitting all the right marks? Check out: How to Ace Referral Management in 5 Steps.

Lock Down Lead Distribution

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team

Lead distribution is basically the inverse of referrals — you’re sending leads to partners. So think about what they need to convert your lead into a deal registration.

What data do they need to know? (where did the lead come from, what are they interested in, etc.)

What did you tell the lead?

How much time do they have to act on the lead?

Build in escalation paths for unresponsive partners so you can pass leads on to other partners who are eager to jump on the deal. And make it easy for partners to accept the lead and convert it into a deal registration — they shouldn’t have to duplicate records or re-enter data.

Structure Your MDF

Timing: 2-3 days

Resources: Partner team + partner marketing + finance

In most partner programs, partners are only eligible for marketing development funds if they meet certain sales targets or achieve specific performance metrics. That means you’ll need to determine who qualifies for MDF, and what activities you’re willing to fund.

Partners should submit a simple proposal outlining the activity, expected outcome, and budget. Your team will review it against marketing goals and available funds (this is where you’ll want to involve your marketing and finance peers), approves or rejects it, and sets expectations for how reimbursement or payment will work — whether that’s direct payment, invoice reimbursement, or account credits.

Finally, make sure you can track what happened.

Require basic documentation, confirm funds were used as intended, and report on outcomes like pipeline influence or lead volume. If you can’t tie MDF activity back to results, it becomes harder to defend the budget next quarter.

Set Up Your SPIFFs

Timing: 1-2 days

Resources: Partner team + finance

SPIFFs are short-term incentive programs designed to drive urgency, but they only work if your partner expectations are crystal clear. To start working on your campaigns you’ll need: 

• Descriptions
• Payout amounts
• Deadlines
• Qualification rules

You’ll also want to outline how claims are reviewed and who owns approvals.

If your finance team needs to audit SPIFFs before payment, bake that into your internal SLAs. And if you plan to run multiple campaigns at once, stagger launch dates or use targeting rules to avoid confusion and make sure your partners get paid quickly. That builds long-term trust in the program, even if the incentives change over time.

Prep Your CRM Sync

Timing: 4-5 days. In reality, the prep work should only take a few hours. But most CRM admins have a ton on their plate, so you’ll need to give them some time to prioritize your request.

Resources: Partner team + CRM admin

To get the most out of your PRM, you’ll want to connect it to your CRM. Your admin will not only need to set up an integration user to connect the two systems, they’ll also likely have to create certain custom fields in your CRM and be ready to map all of your partner organization, user, deal registration, referral, and lead distribution fields from your PRM to your CRM.

If you’re using distributors, you’ll want to confirm that your sync setup can account for their unique role, like submitting on behalf of other partners or creating new partner records that need review.

Everyone has their CRM set up a particular way. No matter which one you use, there will be kinks in the process. Having this prep work done earlier in the implementation gives you time to fix those glitches before you roll out the portal to your partners and internal teams. 

PRM Launch Project Plan – Week 5: Testing & Launch Logistics

Test Your CRM Sync

Timing: 3-5 days

Resources: Partner team + CRM admin

Before opening the doors to partners, confirm that your CRM integration works end-to-end. That means:

• Creating a new partner organization and users and making sure they flow into your CRM as accounts and contacts.
• Updating accounts and contacts in your CRM and making sure those changes flow into your PRM (and vice versa).
• Making sure new deal registrations and referrals appear as leads in your CRM.
• You can send leads directly to your partners from your CRM.
• Converting leads to opportunities in your CRM and making sure the connection doesn’t break on those records in your PRM.

Use impersonation tools to walk through everything from a partner’s perspective and look closely at edge cases. You want clean data and smooth handoffs from day one.

Start Pre-Launch Marketing

Timing: 3-5 days

Resources: Partner team + partner marketing

Your PRM won’t get used just because it’s live. Partners need a reason to log in, and a clear path to value once they do. Build awareness ahead of your launch with a focused communication plan. Here are some examples of what you might include in your pre-launch marketing:

• A new incentive structure
• The quick and easy deal reg or MDF request process
• A screenshot of your home page or other important pieces of the portal
• Training and certification highlights
• Quotes from partners who went through beta testing

Distribute this info across all your partner touchpoints: email, shared Slack or Teams channels, regular partner meetings, newsletters, and your next webinar. A single announcement won’t cut it: repeat the message so that it sticks.

Internally, keep momentum high by recognizing the teams who made the launch possible. A well-run rollout is as much a cultural win as it is a technical one.

Want a more in-depth look at what good partner enablement looks like? Read: Partner Enablement Program Design in 8 Steps.

Do a Soft Roll Out

Timing: 1 week. You want to give your partners enough time to poke around and give constructive criticism.

Resources: Partner team + handful of partners. Too many cooks in the kitchen can cause feedback overload that slows down your launch. You can always ask for broader feedback later.

Before you invite trusted partners to test, run all the workflows you want them to run impersonating a fake partner user. Check that modules are accessible, dashboards populate correctly, notifications get triggered, and nothing breaks.

Then, contact those trusted partners you identified in week one to explore the portal before your full launch. Have them test core actions such as:

• Setting up their account
• Inviting colleagues to the portal
• Finding and downloading pricing and one-pagers
• Running through a training course
• Registering a deal
• Submitting a referral
• Requesting MDF

Gather feedback, document issues, and fix what matters most. Keep the test group small so you can respond quickly, but diverse enough to catch blind spots. This is your last chance to make meaningful improvements before opening the floodgates.

PRM Launch Project Plan – Week 6: Final Checks

Adjust Based On Partner Feedback

Timing: 3-5 days, depending on the extent of feedback.

Resources: Partner team

You’ll probably get a lot of suggestions from internal users and early partners, but not all of them need to be actioned.

Focus on the feedback that improves usability, fixes friction in critical workflows, or helps your team scale. Set the rest aside for post-launch improvements. Remember, you’re on a timeline here!

Establish Your Reporting Framework

Timing: 2-3 days

Resources: Partner team

Set up dashboards for key metrics you’ll want to monitor, like deal volume, portal logins, training completions, content downloads, and partner activity by type. That way, you’re not scrambling when your first QBR rolls around.

If your PRM offers built-in analytics, use them. Giving partners visibility into their own performance can reinforce behavior without more manual outreach. And it gives your team the context needed to improve the program over time.

Want a set of KPIs for every module? Check out Partner Analytics: What It Is and How to Do It.

Want a Portal That Can Actually Get Implemented in 6 Weeks (or Less)?

Look no further than Channeltivity. Schedule a demo to see how fast you can go live with your enterprise channel program.

Not quite ready for a demo?

See how Recorded Future (a Mastercard company) got its PRM up and running in 5 weeks — with just two dedicated resources.