Site.createExternalUser not sending out welcome email to user

Question

I am creating a new community user via an apex controller using Site.createExternalUser(user, accountId, password, sendEmailConfirmation) method.

The community user is getting created ok but I am not getting a welcome email sent out from Salesforce, even though the sendEmailConfirmation parameter is set to true.

If I manually click on Enable Customer User from the Person Account instead then I get an email sent so it isn't related to email deliverability.

public static void createPortalUser(Id accountId) {

    Account person = getAccount(accountId);

    String firstName = 'unknown';
    String lastName = 'name';

    if (person.FirstName != null) {
        firstName = person.FirstName;
    }
    if (person.LastName != null) {
        lastName = person.LastName;
    }
    string nickname = firstName.substring(0, 1) + lastName;

    User u = new user();
    u.FirstName = person.FirstName;
    u.LastName = person.LastName;
    u.Email = person.PersonEmail;
    u.Alias = nickname.abbreviate(8); // only 8 characters
    u.Username = person.PersonEmail;
    u.CommunityNickname = nickname.abbreviate(40);
    u.LocaleSidKey = 'en_GB';
    u.TimeZoneSidKey = 'Europe/London';
    u.profileId = getCommunityLoginProfile('Portal Login User');
    u.LanguageLocaleKey = 'en_US';
    u.EmailEncodingKey = 'UTF-8';
    u.ContactId = person.PersonContactId;
    u.IsActive = true;

    String userId = Site.createExternalUser(u, accountId, null, true);

}

Answer 1

We are having a similar problem with using Site.createExternalUser. If "Let guest users see other members of this community" is not checked in the Community Administration preferences, it won't sent the email. I am trying to figure out why. You might check and see if checking this box resolves the issue for you.