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Questions for SFDC on SF Knowledge Base
My client is using knowledge base but found many limitations troubling. Why did SFDC made it this way? Is there plan to change that? If so, when?
Here are the areas that trouble us:
1. Why can we assign only up to 8 categories per category group to one article? SFDC help says 10, but in our instance the reality is 8 per category group. This is extremely limiting.
2. Why are we allowed only 3 category groups? Due to the 8-category-per-article limitation, we are separating some of the categories into new category group, then the limitation of 3 category group is quite intriging. What is the rationale behind that?
3. Is there a way to map different category groups for different article types? Often times different article types may need completely different categories, it would be nice to be able to have different category groups apply based on article type.
4. When user creates articles from closed cases, the articles are always assigned to one default article type. Then once an article is created, the article type cannot be changed. Why is this? We have users who are not article managers who need to create more than one article type, this limitation becomes very restricting.
Are there any others who encounter the same issues and are troubled by them? What are your workarounds? What are your best practices?
Hi jo9ix,
To add some context, we create data categories to help agent to filter and find easily articles that they are looking for. Creating complex data category or having too much data category is a brake usually for agent to use them and they finish by not using it.
An agent will not spend to much time to select the right item in a data category if there is more than 10 or 15 items except if the data category is very clear for agent (software with version number for example).
On another hand, creating complex data category model make also harder to manage on publication side and increase mistake that can be done by publisher.
To go back on your question, limitation that you list as:
- Number of total data category groups
- Number of data category selections per data category group that can be chosen per record
are mainly due to performance. We want to keep the product scalable and that's why we limit these values. In coming release, we will increase these values. But please keep in mind, that too much data category can became unusable.
About your question 3, it's not mandatory to select a value for each data category group.
About your question 4, I understand your point and we are working to allow you to select which type of article you want to create.
Thank you for your response. As long as SFDC is actively working on this new product and improving it in future releases, I can be more confident in answering my client's questions. As knowledge base can be made external and that is one of the most attractive features, it would be beneficial to have a more robust and flexible KB structure. The current one is just not the case. I look forward to more features and higher limits.