name: industries-public-sector-setup description: "Public Sector Solutions (PSS) setup: licensing, permits, inspections, benefits, case management for government, citizen portals, and grant management. NOT for standard Service Cloud case management (use service-cloud-core-setup). NOT for generic Experience Cloud portals (use experience-cloud-site-setup)." category: admin salesforce-version: "Spring '25+" well-architected-pillars:

• Security
• Reliability
• Operational Excellence tags:
• public-sector
• industries
• licensing
• permits
• benefits
• grants
• omnistudio triggers:
• "how do i set up public sector solutions in salesforce"
• "licensing and permitting module configuration"
• "citizen case intake and benefits management"
• "grant management object model in pss"
• "pss license application approval workflow"
• "public sector inspections and enforcement setup" inputs:
• Target cloud/edition (PSS license assigned, base Service Cloud present)
• Business process in scope (license, permit, inspection, benefit, grant)
• Agency jurisdictional levels and record ownership model
• Citizen channel list (portal, phone, paper, email) outputs:
• PSS object model activation checklist
• License/permit type and approval routing configuration
• Omni-Channel and case queue setup for citizen intake
• Citizen portal profile, sharing, and guest-user hardening notes dependencies: [] version: 1.0.0 author: Pranav Nagrecha updated: 2026-04-21

Industries Public Sector Setup

Activate when configuring Salesforce Public Sector Solutions (PSS) for a government agency: issuing licenses or permits, routing citizen cases, managing benefit enrollments, running inspections, or standing up grant programs. PSS is not a single feature — it is a licensed industry bundle that layers on top of Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, and OmniStudio.

Before Starting

• Confirm the PSS license is provisioned. Features like BenefitDisbursement, LicenseApplication, and the out-of-the-box OmniScripts ship only when PSS is enabled.
• Identify the regulatory framework. Public-sector programs usually have statutory timelines, audit requirements, and disclosure rules that drive field-level encryption and audit trail decisions.
• Decide the citizen channel mix early. PSS expects a mix of portal, phone, email, and paper; each channel implies different intake automation (OmniScript vs Web-to-Case vs Email-to-Case).

Core Concepts

PSS-specific data model

PSS adds purpose-built objects: LicenseApplication, RegulatoryCode, Case record types for permit/inspection/enforcement, Authorization, BusinessLicense, Party, PartyRelationship, plus benefit objects (IndividualApplication, Benefit, BenefitDisbursement). You do NOT recreate these with custom objects; you configure the shipped objects.

OmniStudio is mandatory

PSS intake, decisioning, and citizen journeys ship as OmniScripts, Integration Procedures, and DataRaptors. Admin work that would be Flow-first in Sales/Service is Omni-first in PSS. Do not replace a shipped OmniScript with a Flow unless you have a specific reason — you will inherit upgrade drift.

Multi-jurisdiction sharing

Public-sector agencies almost always have nested jurisdictional ownership (state → county → municipal). PSS uses a combination of Role Hierarchy, Account hierarchies on Account with record type Agency, and criteria-based sharing on regulatory objects. Build the org with jurisdiction in mind before loading the first case — retrofitting is painful.

Common Patterns

Pattern: License application with fee and approval

Use the shipped LicenseApplication object, Approval Process, and payment integration. Drive applicant intake through OmniScript → DataRaptor → Apex invocable that creates the LicenseApplication. Fees flow through a Payment Gateway external credential, not custom Apex HTTP callouts.

Pattern: Inspections with offline-capable mobile

Inspectors need Field Service Mobile or the PSS Inspector mobile experience. Inspections are Case records with record type Inspection, tied to an Asset (the inspected facility or permit). Use Field Service scheduling if dispatch is needed; use plain task assignments if routes are self-planned.

Pattern: Benefit enrollment with eligibility decisioning

IndividualApplication → Benefit → BenefitDisbursement. Eligibility rules ship as a Business Rules Engine (BRE) expression set — do NOT hand-code eligibility in Apex or Flow; BRE is auditable, versioned, and expected by the shipped OmniScripts.

Decision Guidance

Recommended Workflow

1. Confirm PSS license is active and all dependent permission set groups (PublicSectorAccess, OmniStudioUser) are available.
2. Activate the PSS-required objects via Setup → Public Sector → Feature Settings before any data load.
3. Build or clone the shipped OmniScripts for the intake channels actually in use; deactivate the ones you do not use to reduce upgrade noise.
4. Configure Role Hierarchy and Agency account hierarchy BEFORE loading any case, license, or party data — these drive all downstream sharing.
5. Stand up the citizen portal with guest user hardened per Experience Cloud guest security guide; wire OmniScripts to the portal pages.
6. Load reference data (RegulatoryCode, license types, permit types) before transactional data.
7. Smoke test a citizen journey end-to-end (intake → approval → payment → disbursement or issuance) before go-live.

Review Checklist

• PSS license provisioned and feature settings activated
• Role hierarchy + Agency account hierarchy reflect jurisdictional model
• Shipped OmniScripts either used or explicitly deactivated (not silently duplicated)
• Eligibility logic in BRE, not Apex or Flow
• Citizen portal guest user follows guest-user hardening guide
• Audit field history enabled on LicenseApplication, BenefitDisbursement, Case
• Reference data loaded before transactional data

Salesforce-Specific Gotchas

1. PSS shipped OmniScripts get overwritten on upgrade. Customizing them in place means upgrades silently revert your changes. Always clone and use versioning.
2. Business Rules Engine is licensed separately in some editions. Confirm BRE entitlement before designing eligibility around it.
3. Agency Account record type is mandatory. Converting existing Account records to use the Agency hierarchy after the fact triggers a sharing recalculation that can take hours on large orgs.

Output Artifacts

Related Skills

• admin/service-cloud-core-setup — underlying Service Cloud layer
• admin/experience-cloud-site-setup — citizen portal foundations
• omnistudio/omniscript-flexcard-basics — PSS intake/UX layer
• security/experience-cloud-guest-user-hardening — portal security