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Knowledge Article visibility and Data Category Considerations

Publish Date: Nov 6, 2024
Description

Data Category visibility for users may be configured via the following key areas:

 



Data categories are used to help find and classify knowledge articles. The data category security model differs from most standard Salesforce security models. Normally you would begin with the most restrictive level of access at the base and then open up or grant access from there. However, with Data Categories, this model is the opposite and you'd actually start with an open security model as the default and then restrict visibility from there. See How Category Visibility Differs from Other Salesforce Models for more details.



Note: Current documentation states, "Role, permission set, and profile visibility settings restrict default visibility settings. For example, if a data category is visible by default, it is not seen by a user whose role restricts access to that data category." See Data Category Visibility for more information.

However, it's not possible to restrict data category visibility via profiles and documentation is in the process of being updated to reflect this. If it's not possible to restrict visibility via user roles as a workaround, administrators will need to consider changing their default data category visibility to restrict access instead. See Doc Fix: Unable to restrict Data Category visibility settings with only profiles for more details.
 
Resolution

 

Knowledge and data category considerations:

 

  • The user must be granted visibility in each category that classifies the article, or each category that classifies the article must be visible by default.  See Add Data Categories to Category Groups for more information on creating categories and restricting access. 

If you have an article that's classified with multiple category groups, users will need visibility to at least 1 category in each group in order to see the article. Administrators should consider this when designing and implementing multiple data category groups and when classifying articles so that they're visible for appropriate audiences.
 
  • If a user has no access to the whole category group, they can only see uncategorized articles for that group. 
 
  • Users who are not assigned to a category’s visibility by role, permission set, or profile can only see uncategorized articles and questions unless:

- The user has the “View all Data” permission.

- A category group has been made visible to all users on the Default Data Category Visibility page in Setup.
 
  • Child roles cannot see more data categories than their parent role. If the parent role's visibility changes to be less than its child's visibility, the child role's category visibility is reset to its parent's category visibility.

 

  • In Experience Cloud Sites, external users with Customer Community Plus or Partner Community licenses will inherit data category visibility settings of the role assigned to their account (owner) managers by default

 

  • When a category is made visible to a user through custom settings or is made visible by default, its child and parent categories are implicitly included.

 

  • Translated articles will follow the master article data category. Therefore, translated articles cannot be assigned to a different data category.



For more detailed information and explicit examples, see Category Group Article Visibility Settings Examples.


 

Additional Resources

Support Video:
How to Set Up Salesforce Knowledge in Service Cloud

Knowledge Article Number

000382931

 
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Salesforce Help | Article