Your Quick Guide to Salesforce Knowledge

Salesforce Knowledge Overview

Salesforce Knowledge is a powerful knowledge management platform built natively into Salesforce. It allows organizations to create, manage, and publish a structured Knowledge Base that serves internal agents, portal users, partners, and customers alike. Tightly integrated with both Service Cloud and Experience Cloud, Salesforce Knowledge sits at the center of any modern, scalable support strategy.

What is Salesforce Knowledge and Why Do You Need It?

Salesforce Knowledge gives you the ability to build a Knowledge Base with a single, trusted repository for documentation, policies, FAQs, and how-to guides. Instead of answers scattered across emails, PDFs, and spreadsheets, everything lives in one searchable, version-controlled system.

Here are five common use cases:

• Customer self-service: Publish articles to a public site so customers resolve issues without opening a case.
• Agent enablement: Surface relevant articles directly on the Case page so agents respond faster and more consistently.
• Partner enablement: Share sales processes, product updates, and onboarding content with your channel partners.
• Internal knowledge: Store company policies, SOPs, and Salesforce admin documentation for internal teams.
• Case deflection: Show article suggestions before a customer submits a form, reducing inbound volume.

The result: faster answers, fewer support cases, and one reliable source of truth across every channel.

Knowledge Licenses

Salesforce Knowledge is a paid product. Understanding the licensing model helps you plan rollout and control costs.

Knowledge User license — required for anyone who creates, edits, or publishes articles. Agents and authors need this license. It is often bundled with Service Cloud.

Readers do not need a special license — internal users, customer community members, partner users, and guest (unauthenticated) visitors can all read articles without an additional Knowledge license. You only pay per author, not per reader.

Practical Tip
To enable a Knowledge User, go to Setup → Users → Open a user record → Enable the “Knowledge User” checkbox, which specifies if the user is a knowledge user.

Knowledge Channels

Once you have your articles published, access can be set up through channels. These channels define the audiences for your content: Internal users, Partners, Customers, and Guest Users.

Internal Users

The internal channel is for internal users only. This is for content that your internal user needs access to, such as company rules, job descriptions, internal Salesforce documentation, etc.

The “Visible in Internal app” checkbox is always on, which means that this knowledge article is visible inside Salesforce.

Partners

Partners share the content with partner licensed users within a Partner Community. For example, share content such as sales process descriptions or product updates with your partners.

Customers

The Customer channel is critical for customer self-service and case deflection. The customer channel shares content with users on a customer community license within a Customer Community. It’s good for FAQs, troubleshooting articles, and step-by-step guides.

Guest Users

The Public channel is how you expose and share knowledge content with guest users. This content can be shared on a public site page and is accessible to unauthenticated users. 

Practical Tip
Enable only the minimum channels needed per article. Keeping internal articles out of the Public channel prevents accidental exposure of sensitive content.

Knowledge Object

In Lightning Knowledge, all articles live on a single Salesforce standard object: Knowledge (API name: Knowledge__kav). This simplifies reporting and sharing.

The object ships with three default fields:

• Summary: A short description displayed in search result previews.
• Title: The article headline, used in search results.
• URL Name: Auto-generated slug used in Experience Cloud URLs.

All other fields are custom. In the most common setup, admins add a rich text Article Body field. More complex setups may include fields for product line, affected version, or resolution steps.

Record Types control article layout and content. A FAQ record type may have a Question and Answer field, while a How-To article may have a Steps field and an Estimated Time field. Keeping record types aligned to real content types makes both authoring and filtering more intuitive.

Practical Tip
Use Record Types to enforce structure. Authors filling in labeled fields produce more consistent, searchable articles than those writing into a single blank text field.

Knowledge Content Lifecycle

Every article moves through three states: Draft, Published, and Archived. Keep your Salesforce knowledge base up to date by deleting outdated information and updating guidelines according to the product changes.

Article States and Versioning 

• Draft: The article is in the process of being created. Every time a new article is created, it is automatically saved as a draft article version. Once draft articles are completed, they will be published and will be turned into Published Articles.
  
• Published: The article is approved and published. Published articles may be reverted to Draft Articles if changes need to be made. Old published articles can be archived or deleted accordingly.
  
• Archived: Archiving an article hides the article, so articles don’t display to agents and customers on your organization’s Salesforce Knowledge channels.

Each article has a version number and a history of versions. When you need to update a published article, you edit it as a draft and then publish it (or send it for approval) as a new version. This allows you to add new content without impacting users’ published versions.

Article Translations

With multiple languages for Salesforce Knowledge, you can lower support costs by translating articles into the languages your audience prefers. 

If your organization supports a multilingual knowledge base, give agents and authors access to translated articles. Add authoring actions to user profiles so your agents can access master language versions and translation drafts.

Data Categories

Data Categories and Data Category Groups are some of the main features of Salesforce Knowledge. Article organization and article access are set up through these two functions:

Data Categories Groups and Limits 

Data categories allow you to organize your article content hierarchically. Data Categories can be grouped into Data Category Groups. You can create up to three Data Category Groups, each containing up to 100 categories arranged in a five-level hierarchy (extendable by Salesforce support).

The feature can be set up in Setup → Data Categories Setup.

Example structure: a group called Products might contain categories like CRM, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud. Each category contains subcategories like Releases, FAQs, and Troubleshooting. Articles can be tagged with multiple categories.

Data Categories for Access Control

Use data categories to control access to a particular set of articles.

Default Data Category Visibility

Control what information should be displayed for users using default category group visibility. There are three variations of visibility:

• All Categories. All categories are visible for the user by default.
• None. No categories are visible for the user by default.
• Custom. Specify the categories the user should see by default.

If you set the default visibility to none, the user will see uncategorised articles only.

Data Category Visibility Per Profile

Apart from default visibility, data categories access can be controlled via profiles and permission sets to ensure users only see knowledge content relevant to them.

Go to Setup → Profiles and open any profile → find Data Category Visibility settings specific to this profile. The settings define which articles from which data categories users should or should not see.

Practical Tip
Set default visibility to None and grant access explicitly per profile. This opt-in model prevents new categories from being accidentally visible to the wrong audience.

Standard Salesforce Knowledge Sharing

Salesforce allows standard access control for articles.

The standard Salesforce sharing model works differently compared to the default sharing model for Knowledge, which uses data categories to control access beyond object permissions.

When you use standard sharing, data categories no longer control record access. Your knowledge base continues to use data categories to classify articles. Data categories affect searches and can be used as filters.

To use the Salesforce sharing model for Knowledge, go to Setup → Sharing Settings → Click “New” under “Knowledge Sharing Rules” to add a sharing rule.

Integration with Service Cloud

Salesforce Knowledge becomes significantly more powerful when paired with Service Cloud. The combination keeps agents informed and speeds up case resolution.

Article Autosuggestions On Cases

When a new case is created or updated, Salesforce’s search engine automatically scans the case Subject and Description and surfaces relevant Knowledge articles in a sidebar. Agents see suggested articles instantly, no manual searching required.

Attaching Articles to Cases

Agents can attach one or more articles directly to a case record. This creates a link between the resolution content and the case, enabling reporting on which articles are most frequently used. High-attachment articles are your most valuable content. Low-attachment articles may need improvement.

Create Article On Case Closing

When resolving a complex case, agents can convert the case resolution into a new draft Knowledge article. This captures real-world solutions directly from the front line.

In Salesforce Classic, enable this in Setup → Knowledge Settings by activating Allow users to create an article from a case. The feature is available in Classic Knowledge.

Practical Tip
Build a weekly review process where a Knowledge manager reviews newly created articles from cases, polishes them, and publishes the best ones. This turns your support queue into a content creation engine.

Salesforce Knowledge and Experience Cloud

Experience Cloud (formerly Community Cloud) is the primary surface for exposing Knowledge to external audiences, such as customers, partners, and the public. The integration between Knowledge and Experience Cloud is deep, but the out-of-the-box configuration has real limitations. Here’s what you need to understand.

Topics on Experience Cloud

The main way to expose articles on the Experience Cloud site is through topics.

Setting up navigational, featured, and content topics allows you to structure your site content and provide easier searching within your knowledge base. One article can be assigned to different topics depending on its content.

Topics are assigned to articles in Experience Cloud workspaces → Content Management → Topics.

Navigational Topics and Data Categories

Organize content for your site members by assigning articles to navigational topics using data categories.

In Experience Workspaces, access navigational topics by clicking Content Management → Topics → Navigational Topics → Link current Salesforce Knowledge articles associated with those categories to each topic.

Create up to 25 navigational topics and up to 10 subtopics for each topic. Each subtopic can have 10 subtopics.

Search

Find Knowledge articles faster by performing a search using a standard Search Component on site.

The article detail page can be accessed from suggested search results (for global search) or from the search results page.

Best practices for effective Knowledge search:

• Write clear, specific article Titles using the words your customers actually type.
• Fill in the Summary field on every article. It appears in search previews and drives click-through.
• Use Salesforce Knowledge synonyms to map alternate terms to canonical content.
• Maintain clean Data Categories so filters remain meaningful on the results page.

Case Deflection

Knowledge articles exposed on your site can help external and guest users deflect support cases from your service agents as you empower your customers to self-service and solve their own queries.

The mechanism works as follows: when a user starts filling out a Contact Support form on an Experience Cloud site, the Case Deflection component automatically searches the Knowledge base using the text the user has typed so far. Relevant articles and community discussions appear in real time. If the user finds their answer, they leave without submitting a case.

Three ways to maximize deflection rates:

• Write FAQ articles that use the exact language customers use in support requests — not internal terminology.
• Tag articles with precise Data Categories so the search engine ranks them highly for the right topics.
• Keep articles short and scannable. Users searching for quick answers abandon long, dense articles.

Practical Tip:
Add a feedback button (Was this helpful?) to your articles. Articles with low helpful ratings are likely not deflecting cases. Prioritize them for rewriting.

New Einstein Search for Knowledge

Einstein Search for Knowledge (Pilot) uses AI to power the Knowledge search experience for internal users, service agents and their customers, and users externally facing Experience Cloud sites. 

The goal of this pilot is to help service agents quickly and easily find the knowledge articles they need, as well as help your customers help themselves and deflect cases. 

Einstein Search for Knowledge improves the search experience in three places:

• A global search bar
• A knowledge sidebar
• An experience cloud search

The first change that users notice when searching for Knowledge is the addition of the badges, identifying promoted articles.

Promoted badges are applied to results from the global search bar and the knowledge sidebar.

Users can also expand the results to get more information about an article without leaving the knowledge search results page.

Admins can customize the details shown here by modifying the profile search layout for the Knowledge object.

Einstein Search for Knowledge also provides improvements to search relevance with an AI-powered model to customize the search behavior for your org, making the order of search results more relevant.

In the Knowledge search sidebar your users can conveniently attach an article to a case, and see which of the listed articles are already attached. 

After completing a search from the sidebar, users can now apply filters like language, products and record type to quickly refine their results. 

If the user determines that the article is not relevant for this case, they can also conveniently create a new one with the “New Article” button.

Salesforce Knowledge and AC Knowledge Management Enterprise

Out of the box, support of the Salesforce Knowledge in Experience Cloud sites is quite limited – topic-based navigation might not be convenient for some organizations’ use cases.

AC Knowledge Management Enterprise gives companies and organizations of all sizes the ability to build out a comprehensive Knowledge Base inside their Salesforce Experience Cloud to serve their customers, partners and employees. Here are the benefits we provide:

Two Scenarios of Configuration

Standard Filtering

If your knowledge base is large and users need to find articles across a broad topic space, Standard Filtering is the right configuration. It provides an easy way for users to find the relevant content via filtering by data categories and article types.

Advanced Navigation

If your knowledge base needs to work like a structured guide, manual, or documentation portal where readers follow a defined path from beginning to end, Advanced Navigation is the configuration to choose. Admins create an ordered navigation hierarchy that guides users through topics sequentially. This mirrors the experience of reading a structured manual or developer documentation.

Create Articles From Experience Cloud Site

Let your customers and site members help you to create perfect knowledge content. Using the new AC Create Article Form component, you can allow your site members to contribute to the knowledge base and provide valuable content directly within the site.

Content Section Support and Collapsible/Expandable sections

Long articles are rather difficult for users to navigate. Let your site members navigate to specific sections of the article using anchor links. Additionally, display article content on the advanced navigation hierarchy tree. 

Help your members navigate to any article section without scrolling by using collapsible and expandable sections.

Landing Pages

Category landing pages give each major topic area in your knowledge base a dedicated overview page. Instead of dropping users into a flat list of articles, a landing page provides context: a brief description of what this category covers, featured articles, and the navigation hierarchy for that topic area.

Advanced Case Deflection

Advanced Case Deflection wizard provides great case deflection. Decrease the number of cases by letting users go through the most common problems and questions and finding solutions in relevant knowledge articles instead of submitting cases.

If users don’t get the answer they need, they can continue with creating a case.

Multibases Support

The multi bases feature would allow you to support separate knowledge bases for your multiple products, including the ability to search through each base separately and display the correct navigation if one article is assigned to different data categories.

Custom Filters

Standard Knowledge filtering is limited to the fields Salesforce exposes by default. AC Knowledge Management Enterprise lets admins define custom filter dimensions tailored to their content model — for example, filtering by product version, affected platform, or article type.

Custom filters make the user’s search experience significantly more targeted, especially in large knowledge bases where Data Category filtering alone is too coarse to narrow results effectively.

Article Following and Subscription

Let site members subscribe to their favorite articles, and be notified about changes or version updates of the articles they are followed by sending email notifications. This is especially valuable for technical documentation that changes with product releases. Subscribed users stay up to date automatically without needing to revisit the knowledge base manually.

File Attachments Support

Some knowledge base content is inherently document-based: installation guides, configuration templates, certificate files, technical diagrams. AC Knowledge Management Enterprise includes a dedicated File Attachments component that allows admins and authors to attach files directly to Knowledge articles.

Attachments appear inline on the article detail page, giving users one-click access to associated documents without navigating elsewhere.

Case Deflection Analytics

AC Knowledge Management Enterprise provides a dedicated Case Deflection Analytics dashboard that tracks:

• Number of deflection questions raised through the wizard or contact form.
• Articles viewed per deflection session.
• User visits and session depth within the knowledge base.
• Deflection rate: users who found an answer vs. those who submitted a case.

These metrics let you report to leadership with confidence: ‘Our Knowledge base deflected X cases this month, saving Y hours of agent time.’ Without this data, the value of your investment in Knowledge is invisible.

Star Rating System

We support articles’ 5-star article rating system. Site members can rate articles after reading, providing a direct signal of content quality from the audience that matters most: your customers.

Ratings feed into a prioritized improvement backlog. Low-rated articles with high view counts are the highest-priority candidates for rewriting (they reach many users but fail to serve them). High-rated articles with low view counts may need better surfacing in navigation and search.

Summary

Salesforce Knowledge is a mature, enterprise-grade knowledge management platform that powers self-service, agent enablement, and partner enablement across Service Cloud and Experience Cloud.

But for organizations building customer-facing knowledge bases on Experience Cloud, the standard Salesforce toolset has real limitations in navigation structure, filtering depth, analytics, and user engagement. AC Knowledge Management Enterprise by Advanced Communities addresses each of these gaps directly.

Ready to build a best-in-class Experience Cloud knowledge base?
Contact us to request a demo of our product and discuss the best solution for you.