How to Enable Knowledge User and Create Articles in Salesforce

While working as a System Administrator in a company that uses Salesforce to provide services to customers, we recently hired some new support agents.

These agents currently lack sufficient knowledge to address many questions raised by customers through queries or support tickets.

To help them, we decided to enable Salesforce knowledge. To enable users to create and use knowledge articles, I need to make the user a knowledge user.

So they can create, access, and use knowledge articles, which contain answers to common customer questions and step-by-step solutions.

In this article, we will learn about Salesforce knowledge and how to enable a knowledge user and create articles in Salesforce.

Knowledge Article in Salesforce

In Salesforce, knowledge articles are information documents that include details of common queries or questions related to processes, features, and service product descriptions.

For example, the customer has a question about the Wi-Fi router not working. The support agent is unsure of the proper steps to resolve this query.

So, they will search for a relevant knowledge article to find the proper information related to the customer’s query and review it.

Also, we can implement AI automation to suggest proper knowledge articles and create emails automatically using the Einstein service replies for emails in Agentforce.

Knowledge User in Salesforce

A knowledge user in Salesforce is a user who has special permission to work with knowledge articles.

If you want a user, such as a support agent, to create, edit, publish, or manage knowledge articles, you must enable the knowledge user checkbox on their user record.

Without this setting, the user can log in to Salesforce but cannot use Knowledge features.

Enable Knowledge User in Salesforce

Below, I will explain how to enable a knowledge user in Salesforce so the user can create and use knowledge articles to answer customer questions.

1. Click on the Setup. -> Home Page -> Click your avatar/profile picture in the top right -> Select Settings.

2. After that, click the Advanced User Details option.

3. First, we need to check the knowledge user box on their user record. If this box is unchecked, the user cannot create, edit, or access knowledge articles.

4. To enable a knowledge user, check the knowledge user checkbox and save the user record.

In this way, we can enable a user as a knowledge user and give them access to create and use knowledge articles in Salesforce.

Enable Knowledge Settings in Salesforce

After enabling the knowledge user, we need to activate knowledge in Salesforce so that the organization can start creating and managing knowledge articles.

1. To do that, search for the Knowledge Setting in Quick Find.
   • To enable knowledge, check the checkbox, click Enable Salesforce Lightning Knowledge, and click Okay to proceed. So now knowledge is enabled in this org.

2. Now, we need to edit some knowledge settings, as given below. To do that, click the Edit button and enable the following settings.

3. Now, check the Activate Validation Status field checkbox. Then, Enable Lightning Knowledge so that the knowledge article appears in the Lightning UI as well.
   • Next, make this article available to the communities, which are internal apps, customers, and partners.

5. Next, this is the most important point: Suggest related articles on cases. This checkbox ensures that the recommended knowledge articles start appearing on cases based on the field you define.
   • Right now, you see that the Subject field is selected by default, which means that when Salesforce recommends knowledge articles, it will look for the content of the subject.

6. Then, it will find that in all of the knowledge articles, whichever article it finds relevant will start showing up in the recommended knowledge articles section.
   • Then click the Save button to apply the changes.

In this way, we can set up knowledge in Salesforce and allow users to create, manage, and share knowledge articles to support customers.

Create Knowledge Article in Salesforce

Next, I will explain how to create a knowledge article in Salesforce, enabling users to document solutions and share helpful information with customers.

1. On the Setup page of Salesforce Lightning, click on the App Launcher and select the Service Lightning app.

2. In the Service app, click on the Knowledge tab.

3. In the Knowledge tab, click on the New button to create a Knowledge article.

4. In this step, enter the Title, URL Name, and Summary. After entering these fields, click on the Save button.
   • For example, I have written the product name in the Title field, and the URL Name will be auto-filled according to the entered title.
   • After that, I have written a product description in the Summary field.

5. As we click on the Save button, the Knowledge article will be created as shown in the picture, and the created article will be in Draft mode.

In this way, we have successfully set up and created a knowledge article in Salesforce Lightning with the help of the above steps.

Insert and Publish Knowledge Article From CSV File in Salesforce

Now, let’s understand how to insert and publish multiple draft knowledge articles at the same time from a CSV file so that we can save time and avoid creating each article one by one.

1. Here, I have one Excel file with a few knowledge articles. We will insert all these knowledge articles into the Knowledge object simultaneously.

2. We only need the title, summary, and URL name to create the knowledge articles. So copy these, then go to the knowledge article again and click the Inspector button.
   • There, you will have the Data Import operation to insert the knowledge articles.

3. Now, paste the copied content in the Data option. Then, the Object where knowledge articles are stored. So here, we need to select Knowledge__kav.
   • In the Field Mapping, you can see that the external file columns and internal fields are mapped. These are the three mandatory fields for creating a knowledge article.
   • After that, click on the Run Insert button to create the knowledge articles.

4. Again, click the Insert button to see that the knowledge articles are inserted into this system.
   • However, it needs to be published to be effective. If I open any record by clicking on the ID, you will see that it is in draft mode.

5. You can see that the Knowledge object tab is still in draft mode, and all the knowledge in draft mode does not show up in the recommended section.
   • To edit this object, click the Gear icon and the Edit Object option.

6. Next, navigate to Page Layout -> Mobile & Lightning Actions. We need to enable the “Drag the publish button to the UI” lightning action.
   • After that, drag and drop the publish button into the page layout.

7. You can also drag other buttons. For example, you have Delete Draft or Delete Article. Then click the Save button to apply the changes.

8. Again, as you navigate to the knowledge tab and refresh the page, you will see the buttons that you added to the page layout. Now, we have to publish draft articles by clicking on the Publish button.

9. When you click the publish button here, you need to select Publish now and then click the Publish button again.

10. The article’s Publication Status has changed from Draft to Published. Thus, this organization now has a few knowledge articles, one of which has been published.
    • If Salesforce finds that this knowledge is relevant to the case we are working on, this article should appear in the recommended section.

In this way, we can insert and publish multiple draft knowledge articles simultaneously in Salesforce.

Conclusion

I hope you have got an idea about how to enable knowledge users and create knowledge articles in Salesforce. In this section, I have explained the concepts of knowledge users, articles, and knowledge settings. Additionally, we have seen how to insert and publish multiple draft Knowledge Articles at the same time in Salesforce.

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Bijay Kumar

I am Bijay Kumar, the founder of SalesforceFAQs.com. Having over 10 years of experience working in salesforce technologies for clients across the world (Canada, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand, etc.). I am a certified salesforce administrator and expert with experience in developing salesforce applications and projects. My goal is to make it easy for people to learn and use salesforce technologies by providing simple and easy-to-understand solutions. Check out the complete profile on About us.