PLANNING YOUR IMPLEMENTATION
Before you can begin setting up Salesforce Knowledge, it is important that you consider the following questions. The answers to these questions are necessary prerequisites to completing the tasks in this guide.
How many article types do you need?
Article types are custom containers for your articles; each article type can provide a different look-and-feel for the published article as well different types of information Sample article types include FAQs, Offers, and How-To's. Depending on your needs, you may want
to create anywhere from two or three to a dozen or more article types. For instructions, see Creating Article Types on page 12.
Which fields do you want on each article type?
You can prompt authors to enter specific information by creating custom fields. For example, on a simple FAQ article type you might create text fields named
Question
and
Answer
. On an Offer you might include a picklist named
Contract Type
or a checkbox named
Warranty Available
.
Review the types of custom fields available and decide which fields and labels (names) you want to create for each article type. For instructions, see
Creating Custom Fields
on page 13.
How do you want the published article to appear?
Two factors determine how a published article appears to the end user: the layout and the template. On the article-type layout you can rearrange the custom fields you created and group them into sections. With the article-type template you decide how the sections should display. There are two standard templates: Tab and Table of Contents. The Tab template renders each section as a different tab, and the Table of Contents template keeps all sections on a single page but provides hyperlinks to each one. You can also create a custom template using Visualforce.
Based on the fields you're creating for each article type, decide how the sections should be organized and which template is the best
fit for each channel. For more information and examples of the article-type templates, see Modifying the Layout
on page 17 and Choosing a Template
on page 18.
Who should have access to your knowledge base?
All Salesforce Knowledge users must have a feature license and grants access to the Article Management tab or the Articles tab.
Decide which users need to manage articles, and give them access to the Article Management tab, where they can create, edit, publish, archive, and delete articles. Decide if you want further control over article management by using article type permissions to limit some article management capabilities. For example, you might want to create a permission set that allows users to delete articles, and then assign that permission set to a limited number of article management “super users.” You can also use public groups to further restrict access to any article-management task.
Decide which users need to access but not manage articles, and then create permission sets or profiles that give them access to the
Articles tab, where they can search for and view published articles.
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Planning Your Implementation
For more information, including a description of permissions, see Managing Users
on page 20.
Which data categories do you need?
Data categories allow authors to tag articles from among a hierarchy of criteria that you create. For example, you may want authors to classify articles by geographical region and product line. Agents, customers, and partners can search for articles according to category, and administrators can use data categories to control access to articles.
Decide which category groups and individual categories you want to create. For more information see
Setting Up Data Categories on
page 29.
Do you want to restrict data category access?
By default, all Salesforce Knowledge users can see articles regardless of their category. You can restrict category access by role, permission set, or profile. Once a category is mapped, only users with assigned visibility can see articles classified with the mapped category. Default visibility is available for users without assigned visibility.
Review the category groups you created and the roles, permission sets, and profiles you've assigned (or will assign) to users, then decide how you want to map your categories. For more information, including details about inheritance rules and an example, see
Setting Up
Data Category Visibility on page 35.
Do you want to set up workflow rules or approval processes?
Determine if you want to create workflow rules or approval processes for some or all of your organization's article types.
Workflow rules let you create email alerts, update fields, or send outbound API messages when an article meets certain criteria. For example, you could create a workflow rule that sends an email alert to the article owner when a new article is created from a case. Note that tasks are not supported by article type workflow.
Approval processes automate the approval of articles. When implemented with Salesforce Knowledge, approval processes give you additional control over the content of your articles and the process used to approve them. For example, you can create a process that requires legal and management teams to approve articles containing sensitive information.
Do you want to support articles in multiple languages?
Provide your Salesforce Knowledge articles in the languages your agents and customers are most comfortable with. You can support any language Salesforce supports. For a list of supported languages, see Which Languages Does Salesforce Support? in the Salesforce online help.
For each language, decide whether you will Translate your articles within Salesforce or export them for translation with a vendor. For more information see,
Providing a Multiple Language Knowledge Base on page 38.
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Planning Your Implementation
Do you want agents working on cases to find, create, and send articles?
Use the knowledge base to help solve cases by adding the Articles related list to case page layouts. It allows users to initiate a search for relevant articles with one click, then attach successful results to the case or search again with different parameters. You can also customize settings that enable agents to:
•
Automatically receive suggested articles when creating a new case, whether in the internal app or a public site.
•
Contribute to the knowledge base by creating a draft article when closing a case.
•
Select an email template that converts attached articles to PDF files on a message.
For more information, see Enabling Article Options for Cases on page 42.
Do you want members of your answers community to promote replies to articles?
If your organization has an answers community in the Community application, you can give members the opportunity to convert a particularly helpful reply into an article in the knowledge base. After you enable the
Allow users to create an article from a reply
option on the Knowledge Settings page in Setup, community members who have access to create articles will see a Promote to Article button on replies. After the article is published, users browsing the answers community will see a link to the article on the reply.
Do you need to import articles from an existing knowledge base into
Salesforce Knowledge?
Content from an existing knowledge base can be mapped to article types and imported into Salesforce Knowledge. For detailed instructions, see
Importing Articles into Salesforce Knowledge
on page 48.
Do you want Customer Portal users to have access to articles?
To give your customers access to the knowledge base, make the Articles tab visible in the Customer Portal. For more information, see
Providing Articles in the Customer Portal on page 46.
Do you want partner portal users to have access to articles?
To give your partners access to the knowledge base, make the Articles tab visible in the partner portal. For more information, see Providing
Articles in a Partner Portal on page 47.
Do you want to create a public knowledge base on your website?
If you want visitors to your website to view Salesforce Knowledge articles, install the Public Knowledge Base app from the AppExchange.
To install, configure, and customize your public knowledge base with this package, see the Public Knowledge Base AppExchange App
Guide available on the AppExchange .
10
Planning Your Implementation
Do you want users to search using synonym groups?
From Setup, enter
Knowledge Synonyms
in the
Quick Find
box, then select Knowledge Synonyms to create and manage synonym groups. Synonym groups are words or phrases that are treated as equivalent in article searches. Users can find articles when entering search terms that do not match any terms in the article if the search term is part of a synonym group. For more information see “Creating Search Synonyms” in the Salesforce Help.
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