How agency access works in a Meta business portfolio, and what it can't do

A Meta business portfolio groups a business’s assets in one place and sets who can do what with each one. Assets here means Facebook Pages, ad accounts, Instagram accounts and similar items. Meta’s developer documentation mostly calls the portfolio Business Manager. Your agency can work on a client’s assets in two ways, and both are forms of delegated access. The facts below come from Meta’s developer documentation and the Facebook Help Center, so the names you see on screen may differ.

Two ways to bring an agency in

In the first, the client adds your staff to its own portfolio as people. Per the developer documentation, an admin sends an invitation with the person’s email address and a role, either Admin or Employee. Facebook emails the invitation. Your staff member then signs in with their own Facebook account and works only on the assets assigned to them.

In the second, your agency’s portfolio connects to the client’s as a partner, which the documentation calls an agency. Meta defines an agency as “a type of business entity that can manage or access assets owned by another business.” Your business can request access to a client’s ad account or Page and name the tasks it needs. The client’s admins accept the request. Only the business that owns an asset can grant access to it.

The difference is whose list your staff are on. Added as people, each staff member sits in the client’s portfolio, so every staff change needs the client to act. As a partner, the client shares assets with your business as a whole. Your business asks for the tasks it needs so that it can assign them to its own employees. Removing someone from your portfolio ends the access your portfolio gave them.

Roles and tasks for each asset

A portfolio has two roles, and they differ in who may change things. An Admin can add and remove people and can even delete the portfolio. An Employee can look at the settings but not change them. The only exception: an Employee who already administers a Page or ad account can bring it into the portfolio.

Access to each asset is set separately from the role, as a combination of tasks.

You can narrow tasks to match the work. Someone who only posts needs CONTENT on the Instagram account. Someone who only runs ads needs ADVERTISE and ANALYZE on the ad account. Someone who only reads reports needs ANALYZE.

Page access outside the portfolio

A Facebook Page also has its own access settings, apart from portfolio tasks. The Help Center notes, “If your Page is part of a business portfolio, your access levels are different.” So the three kinds below may not apply as written to a Page inside a portfolio.

Facebook access lets someone act as the Page on Facebook itself. It comes with full control or partial control. The Help Center warns that full control gives a person the same powers you have. They can delete the Page, give access to other people, and take access away from anyone, you included.

Task access works only through Meta’s business tools, such as Meta Business Suite and Ads Manager, and not on Facebook. For agency staff doing posting and ads work, this is the kind to ask for.

Community Manager access covers only the chat on the Page’s live streams. A Community Manager can delete or report comments, suspend viewers from the chat for 15 minutes, ban viewers, and pin comments.

Each Page needs at least one person with Facebook access and full control. If no one has it, the Page is deactivated automatically and scheduled for deletion.

What an invited agency can’t do

An agency that came in through delegated access still can’t do some things only the owner can. Meta’s documentation names two.

• Passing a Page on. The Pages documentation says, “The Agency cannot re-share the Page to another Business.” If you bring in a subcontractor, the client has to grant it access directly.
• Changing who has access to a Page. Full control is what lets someone grant access to others. Staff with task access can’t add a colleague.

So if your staff were added to the client’s portfolio as people, or to a Page directly, each new staff member needs the client to act. That takes a portfolio admin, or someone with full control of the Page. With a partner connection, your own admin assigns them. If your agency handles this by borrowing the client admin’s Facebook login, you’re back to a shared login. Where shared logins remain and what to decide about them is covered in managing client accounts at an agency.

Removing staff and partners

A portfolio admin can remove someone who was added as a person. Removing them also removes their access to that business’s assets. Only access granted through that portfolio goes away. If the same person has access another way, such as directly on a Page or through another business, it stays.

To end a partner connection, the owner removes the agency from the ad account or Page. The owner can also remove an individual’s assignment on an Instagram account.

At a staff change, you need a list for each client and each asset: who has access, how they were added, and which tasks they hold. Without it, you can’t tell what you missed.