Slaesforce FAQ

how to create a knowledge base article in salesforce

by Abigail Boyer Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago
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How do I create a knowledge base article in Salesforce? From Setup, enter Knowledge Article Types in the Quick Find box, then select Knowledge Article Types. Click New Article Type or edit an existing article type.

Create Article Types
  1. From Setup, enter Article Types in the Quick Find box, then select Knowledge Article Types.
  2. Click New Article Type or edit an existing article type.
  3. Enter the information for the following fields: ...
  4. Click Save.
  5. In the Fields section of the Article Type definition, click New.

Full Answer

What is Salesforce knowledge base?

Salesforce Knowledge gives you the ability to build out a comprehensive Knowledge Base (KB) inside of Salesforce to service your internal agents, partners and customers. A Knowledge Base is simply a collection of articles with relevant information about your products and services, to encourage a self-service model for your customers ...

Who writes and edits articles in Salesforce knowledge?

(Check with your Salesforce account executive to determine your licensing needs.) Once Knowledge is up and running, many people will write or edit articles, from agents and managers to subject matter experts and product evangelists.

How to move existing Salesforce classic knowledge content to lightning knowledge?

Use the Lightning Knowledge Migration tool to move existing Salesforce Classic Knowledge content into Lightning Knowledge. Are there fields on our cases we want to use to filter suggested articles? Product family, product region, type of issue. Ursa Major’s important fields include solar components and collections of components called groups.

How do I build a knowledge article?

To build a knowledge article you need to select which fields you wish to have on the page, text, number, rich text etc. Article Types allow you to create different layouts to create different types of articles, for example a Question & Answer layout, How to Guide or a visual guide using rich text fields.

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How do you create a knowledge base article?

9 Simple Hacks to Write Better Knowledge Base ArticlesAsk the right questions. This first step will prime your article for success. ... Pick one idea per article. ... Talk with subject matter experts. ... Use headers to break up your content. ... Focus on your intro. ... Kill the curse of knowledge. ... Add images. ... Add videos.More items...

How do I create a KB in Salesforce?

Set Up Knowledge with a Guided FlowFrom the Setup menu ( ... To open the Lightning Knowledge Setup flow, click the Knowledge Setup tile.Click Start.In the search box, enter a Lightning Knowledge Author. ... Select the author and click Next. ... Enter your data group and data categories and click Next. ... Click Finish.

How do I create a knowledge article in Salesforce lightning?

Create Knowledge ArticlesClick the App Launcher. ... Click New.For Title, enter When is the T-800 coming out?Click in the URL Name field to generate the URL Name from the title.For Text, enter Hopefully this summer!Under Properties, select Visible to Customer.Click Save & New.

How do I add a knowledge base in Salesforce?

Enable Salesforce KnowledgeFrom Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Knowledge , and then select Knowledge Settings.Confirm that you understand the impact of enabling Salesforce Knowledge and click Enable Salesforce Knowledge and click OK in the dialog box.To select your general settings, click Edit.More items...

What is knowledge base article in Salesforce?

Your Salesforce Knowledge base is built from knowledge articles, which are documents of information. Articles can include information on process, like how to reset your product to its defaults, or frequently asked questions, like how much storage your product supports.

How do I publish a knowledge article in Salesforce?

Click the App Launcher and select Knowledge. Click New....Click the *Knowledge tab [1] at the top and change the list view to Draft Articles [2].Check the box next to all three article titles and then click Publish.Ensure Publish Now is selected.Click Publish.

How do I enable knowledge articles in Salesforce?

Enable Lightning KnowledgeFrom Setup, enter Knowledge in the Quick Find box and click Knowledge Settings.On the Knowledge Settings page, click Edit.Select Enable Lightning Knowledge. Note To enable Lightning Knowledge, you must have one article type. ... Enable any other Knowledge settings that you want.Click Save.

How do I add a topic to a knowledge article in Salesforce?

Required Editions and User Permissions Click an article, and then type to assign topics. Choose a suggested topic or type a new one. Type a comma (,) after your new topic to add it to the article. You can click existing topics to remove them.

How do I find Salesforce knowledge articles?

Required EditionsSelect Knowledge in the dropdown list next to the global search box. You can also type knowledge at the top of the dropdown list, then select Knowledge.Optionally, click Advanced Search at the bottom of the results list. ... Enter your search terms, up to 100 characters. ... To run the search, press Enter .

How to create a knowledge base?

Step 1: Conduct Thorough, Cross-Functional Research. A knowledge base requires rigorous structure and planning. Otherwise, nobody will be able to access the precise information they need in the moments they need it most. Content hubs are deceptively complex to create.

How to create a knowledge base that empowers customers?

The key to creating a simple knowledge base that empowers customers? Forethought and planning. Build systems that improve core user experiences, use data to prioritise your most impactful decisions, and ensure that your knowledge base grows with your organisation. Keep things simple, and tackle real challenges for your customers.

How does knowledge base help a business?

Done right, a knowledge base can do wonders for your business. For one, you’ll ramp up efficiencies: With decreased reliance on phone-based customer support, you’ll save valuable company resources and people-hours. You’ll also keep your user base happier since your customers can seek the answers they need at any time of the day, ...

What is MVP in knowledge base?

The concept of an MVP is one you should apply to your knowledge base as well. Especially if you’re launching a knowledge base for the first time, you’re likely tracking many moving parts: Rather than trying to build a rocket ship to the moon, you’ll want to take baby steps. Focus on building out the knowledge base that tackles the needs ...

Why is content planning important?

To the best extent possible, you’ll want to define the following: How content is grouped. To better organise your content and make it more accessible on your website. How individual content pieces relate to each other. For internal linking purposes.

What is Salesforce Knowledge Base?

Salesforce Knowledge gives you the ability to build out a comprehensive Knowledge Base ( KB) inside of Salesforce to service your internal agents, partners and customers. A Knowledge Base is simply a collection of articles with relevant information about your products and services, to encourage a self-service model for your customers ...

Why add topics to articles?

Adding topics to articles lets you easily classify them based on content and provides easier searching within your knowledge base. Think of these like keywords. A single article can have a multitude of topics assigned depending on the content.

What is Lightning Knowledge?

The Lightning Knowledge data model is very different from the Classic Knowledge data model, so the access is also fairly different . In Lightning Knowledge, all articles are on a single Salesforce object called Knowledge (Knowledge__kav) by default (you can actually rename if you want, not just relabel!)

How are topics different from data categories?

Topics are different from Data Categories in that they don’t drive article access in any way and they are not hierarchical. They are primarily used to organize information within a knowledge base in a community. Topics are assigned to articles in Content Management > Topics in the Salesforce community workspaces.

What is the knowledge lifecycle?

The Knowledge Lifecycle is cyclical and stresses continuous improvements to content. To support the Knowledge Lifecycle, Lightning Knowledge has version control, which is a new feature from the Classic model.

Can you approve articles in Salesforce?

As with most Salesforce objects, you can create an approval process for articles. This is invaluable for controlling what content is published, especially if you have a public knowledge base and need to screen content for customer-facing articles.

Enable Validation Status for Articles

Before you can do anything with validation statuses, the validation status field must be activated. Make sure this is ready to go!

Create a Validation Status

Notice there are two different validation statuses already in the system—Validated and Not Validated. Add a Work in Progress status for articles that are in the works, but not ready for validation.

Create and Publish an Article

So far, you’ve set up record types, page layouts, data categories, access and visibility settings, and validation statuses for Knowledge. Now that the foundation is in place, create and publish an article to test the process. Once you create your article, assign it to Ada for validation, and finally, publish it.

Validate and Publish the Article

To fully test the process, sign in as Ada, and validate and publish the article you just created.

Update the Article

Once an article is published, you can always improve or update the information as needed. To test this process, add a note to your recently published Knowledge article. This is accomplished by creating a new version of the article and adding the new text. Once it’s updated, re-publish the article.

Verify Step

You’ll be completing this project in your own hands-on org. Click Launch to get started, or click the name of your org to choose a different one.

Count and Assign Licenses

Maria gets ready to purchase licenses for Lightning Knowledge. First, she has to figure out who needs them. Everyone including the office dog, Sunny? She researches further. It looks like Sunny and most of the agents don’t need licenses right away, because they read articles. They don’t create them.

Enable Knowledge

Maria needs to enable Knowledge for Ursa Major so she and Ada can start turning their plans into reality. She knows that once Knowledge is enabled, she can’t turn it off later. She gets to work.

Go with the Flow

Maria discovers that she can use the Knowledge Setup Flow to automatically enable Knowledge, assign licenses to article authors, and set up data groups and categories. She wishes she’d found out about this easy time-saving tool before she enabled Knowledge and assigned a license to Ada.

Create Articles

Everything is set up and Ada’s ready to create her first article, a question from her FAQ. It’s the first of many, and she wants to make sure that she gets it right. Let’s follow Ada as she creates her first article.

What are Ursa Major's important fields?

Ursa Major’s important fields include solar components and collections of components called groups. Define data category groups for each type of search filter or to determine which user profile sees the articles for each category or group.

Does Ursa Major need to import notes?

Ursa Major is starting with Lightning Knowledge and Ada’s notes, so they don’t need to import anything. Use the Knowledge import tool to bring articles in from a different Knowledge base. Use the Lightning Knowledge Migration tool to move existing Salesforce Classic Knowledge content into Lightning Knowledge.

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Key Points – What You Need to Know

Content Management

  • The Knowledge Lifecycle and Versioning
    Giving your team access to provide feedback either via chatter comments, ratings, or (for super users/authors) directly editing drafts is critical to ensuring your knowledge base is polished for your customers. The Knowledge Lifecycleis cyclical and stresses continuous improvements to c…
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Channels

  • Once you have your articles published, you have several channels to share them with. These channels are like audiences for your content — Internal users, Partners, Customers, and the general Public.
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Approval Processes

  • As with most Salesforce objects, you can create an approval process for articles. This is invaluable for controlling what content is published, especially if you have a public knowledge base and need to screen content for customer-facing articles. The approval processes for knowledge articles work more or less like any other, but there are special ...
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Knowledge Features

  • Ratings
    One feature of Salesforce Knowledge is the ability to let your users rate the content. In Classic Knowledge this was always a 1-5 star rating, but in Lightning Knowledge it’s a simpler thumbs-up or thumbs down rating system. (When migrating, 3,4,5 stars are converted to thumbs-up and 1,2 …
  • Data Categories
    One of the critical features of Salesforce Knowledge is Data Categories and Data Category Groups. These are two major functions — article organization and article access. Data Categories allow you to organize your article content in a hierarchical way. They can also be grouped into D…
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Topics

  • Adding topics to articles lets you easily classify them based on content and provides easier searching within your knowledge base. Think of these like keywords. A single article can have a multitude of topics assigned depending on the content. (Just don’t over-assign topics because then searches could return irrelevant results). Topics are different from Data Categories in that t…
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Case Deflection

  • With customer support teams feeling overwhelmed, Salesforce can help manage the high support volume and Knowledge is one of the methods. Exposing knowledge articles to your external and public users is a great way to deflect support cases from your service agents. A robust knowledge base will empower your customers to self-service rather than flooding your case queue with que…
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Using Apex with Knowledge

  • One final important feature of Knowledge is that it can have Apex triggers and be accessed through Apex code. In fact, there are standard apex classes relating to knowledge management that can be called in Apex for publishing, archiving, searching, and more. In Classic Knowledge this was more restrictive, but the Lightning Knowledge data architecture change included these …
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Keep Learning!

  • Lightning Knowledge is just one facet of the Lightning. To learn more about the Lightning Experience you can check out some webinars and other blogs on the topic! Why Lightning? Why Now? Lightning Experience is the next generation of Salesforce. Take advantage of the new features in Lightning and learn why now is the right time for Salesforce Lightning. Become a Ma…
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Follow Along with Trail Together

Introduction

Enable Validation Status For Articles

Create A Validation Status

Create and Publish An Article

Validate and Publish The Article

  • To fully test the process, sign in as Ada, and validate and publish the article you just created. 1. Click the Setup gear and select Service Setup. 2. Enter Users in the Quick find box and select Users. 3. Next to Ada Balewa, click Login. 4. Ensure you are viewing the Service App, and click the KnowledgeTab. 5. From the list view dropdown at the to...
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Update The Article

Resources

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