Knowledge product raises its popularity across all types of organizations. So, today we want to share what’s new for Salesforce lightning knowledge with the Winter 21 Release.

Salesforce rolled up a Beta version of Standard Sharing for Knowledge in Summer 20 Release. And now the Standard Sharing Settings are generally available for Knowledge. 

You can enable standard Salesforce sharing in Setup -> Knowledge Settings.

These changes apply to lightning knowledge only. 

So, now you are able to expose your knowledge articles to the community members using criteria-based and record-sharing rules instead of the Data Categories sharing.

As long as you have enabled standard sharing for knowledge it can’t be disabled, but if you want to switch back to category sharing, change the default sharing for knowledge to Public Read/Write for all users.

Within the Spring 20 release, the ability to change the owner of a draft article has been added and now you can also change the ownership of published and archived versions. 

How? Just the same way you used to do this for other records. But first, make sure you have all of the following:

• You are a “Knowledge User”
• You have the “Manage Article” user permission
• You have Read/Edit permissions for Knowledge
• You have added the “Change Owner” action button to the Knowledge layout

Once you have done all the above, you can go to the knowledge article record, which is in the draft mode, and click the “Change Owner” button. In the pop-up window, you can also choose appropriate options to change other versions. And, of course, send an email notification. Doesn’t it sound comfy?

Moreover, if you need to change the owner for more than one knowledge article, Salesforce has performed mass ownership changes for draft articles.

In the list view of knowledge articles, select the draft articles you want to change the owner for.

Choose only the list of draft articles. If you select publish or archived articles, their ownership won’t be changed.

One more but no less important update with this release is that now you can also track article ownership changes.

To track the ownership changes, go to Object Manager – Knowledge – Fields&Relationships, and click Set Field History Tracking. Enable the Owner field for history tracking. 

To see the history, go to the Versions related list and see all changes to each version there!

Salesforce CMS is also continuing to improve day by day. And here are some major updates with the Winter 21 Release.

Serve CMS Content with a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Explore the higher performance of delivering valuable content to your users. Now you can deliver Salesforce CMS content through the Content Delivery Network.

A CDN is a distributed group of servers that work together to deliver your content quickly and efficiently.

Connect content to your external sites through the Salesforce CMS public channels.

To create a public channel, open the CMS Channels page in the Salesforce CMS app, click “Create Channel”, and select Public Channel.

Then, click “Edit” beside your channel on the CMS Channels page.

In the Channel Settings window, you can configure a domain that links content from your public channel to the CDN and seamlessly deliver content to your users.

For more information, see also https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=community_builder_cdn_overview.htm&type=5

Organize Salesforce CMS Content with Folders

Now you can create a clear structure of your content and organize it into folders in your Salesforce CMS workspace, and share links to folders with others in your org.

To create and edit folders, you should have a Content Admin role in that CMS workspace or be a Salesforce admin.

In the CMS Workspace create folders by clicking on the “Create Folder” button. You can also create a hierarchy of up to five levels. To make a hierarchy, simply open the already created folder and add a new one to it. Each folder has a unique folder ID that appears in the URL.

Add content directly to folders and move content with folders. To move content, select the checkbox next to the appropriate content record, click the “Move Content” button, and choose the folder to move content in.

Filter by Content Type in Salesforce CMS

Quickly find the necessary content in the Salesforce CMS with the new filters by content type.

Find your published content more easily by filtering by content type, and then paring down to the specific file you want to use. Streamline the search for collections of your CMS content and Salesforce CRM data as well.

Salesforce CMS Now Supports Knowledge Articles in the CMS Collections Component

Now Salesforce CMS supports Knowledge Articles. 

Create a Collection of Knowledge Articles and display it on the community within the Salesforce CMS Collection Component.

To create Salesforce CRM collections for Salesforce CMS, you must have a content admin role in the community or be a Salesforce admin.

First, make sure Knowledge is enabled in your org. 

In the Community Workspaces – Content Management, add a CRM connection for Knowledge to allowlist knowledge articles.

Then create a CRM collection for Salesforce CMS and curate a collection of knowledge articles by referencing a knowledge list view.

Use that collection in the CMS Collection component.

Also, watch the video of how to add Salesforce CRM connections and create CMS collections

Dear Friends and Salesforce Lovers!

Despite the fact that this year has turned out to be very unpredictable for all of us, there is still one thing that comes on time – Salesforce release!

Yes! The Winter’21 Release is on its way and will delight  Admins and Developers with its new features and updates!

The Salesforce Winter’21 Release Notes are already available here https://releasenotes.docs.salesforce.com/en-us/winter21/release-notes/salesforce_release_notes.htm

The Sandbox Preview window for Winter’21 begins on September 11, 2020. You must have an active sandbox on a preview instance before then in order to take advantage of the preview.

Here’s the quick overview of the upcoming Winter’21 Release features and functionalities for Salesforce Communities by the AC team. 

Manage Your Pages and URLs with the Pages Menu

The Pages Menu in Winter‘21 release will provide you with even more flexibility than you have now. 

With the new release, you’ll be able to organize your pages into the hierarchy, restructure them as you need, and manage the pages URLs.

To create a hierarchy, just click on Page Actions next to the page you want to start your hierarchy with, and click +Add Subpage. You can create up to six pages levels in the hierarchy.

You can quickly change the hierarchy or order of the pages any time by choosing the Move Page from the Page Actions. Then select the destination in the pop-up window and confirm it.

When you move a page, any page set under it will also move. You don’t need to worry about the URL either because your subpage URL automatically updates to reflect your changes.

And the cherry on top, you’ll be able to manage the URLs for each page after creating your page hierarchy. Click Page Settings from the Page Action menu and edit the page’s properties, including the page name and URL.

Apply Audiences to Record Detail Pages with Record-Based Criteria

Experience more granular audience criteria that enables you to vary record detail pages based on record fields. You can now vary what people see on a record detail page using audience criteria based on record fields. 

The record-based criteria are available only for record detail pages.

You can create record-based criteria for the following objects:

• Account
• Asset
• Campaign
• Case
• Contact
• Contract
• Lead
• Opportunity
• Product2
• ProductCategory
• Quote
• Custom Objects
• Any object with at least one record type (only some fields available)

Package Tile Menus in Bolt Solutions

You can now package a tile menu with Bolt Solutions and distribute them. All the properties of the tile menu are included in the package, but admins have to associate a navigation menu to the tile menu after the Bolt Solution is installed.

Guest User Security Policies Enforced

In Winter ’21, Salesforce is enforcing the guest user security policies that were introduced in the past few releases, such as the Secure guest user record access and Assign new records created by guest users to the default owner settings. 

Salesforce is also reducing object permissions for guest users, like removing View All Data, Modify All Data, edit, and delete object permissions.

You can opt out of enforcing Guest User Object Permissions. Please note that this applies only for the Winter ’21 release: with the Spring ’21 release, these permissions will be permanently removed for guest users, and can no longer be enabled.

To improve security, new images associated with featured and navigational topics are stored as asset files and are private, i.e. they are not visible for guest users anymore.

To allow guest users to see new featured and navigational topic images in your community, select Let guest users view asset files and CMS content available to the community in Administration | Preferences in Experience Workspaces. This also allows guest users to see images associated with recognition badges, community branding, and account branding.

You can also read more about these policies and how to work around them in our other posts:

IMPORTANT CRITICAL UPDATES: Guest User Record Access

IMPORTANT CRITICAL UPDATES: Restrict Access to Custom Metadata and Settings

Let Users Authenticate by SMS

You can now allow your external users to use SMS as a multi-factor authentication method. No need to download special apps—verification can be as easy as getting a text message.

• LWC-Based Template Upgrade

Support for:

• An upgraded version of Lightning Locker that supports cross-namespace communication
• Custom URL paths for unauthenticated sites, meaning no more /s cluttering up your site’s URL — for example, https://mycustomdomain.com/mypage
• Accessibility features, including screen readers and F6 navigation, which makes it easier to navigate web pages via keyboard
• Search engine optimization (SEO) by including a sitemap that lets search engines crawl public pages
• A new HTML Editor component that lets you add and edit custom markup
• The following @salesforce modules:
  • @salesforce/client
  • @salesforce/customPermission
  • @salesforce/userPermission

Keep following us to dive deeper within the best community features.