Lightning Strikes Knowledge…Again
Are you new to Salesforce Lightning Knowledge? Not sure about the differences between Classic and Lightning Knowledge? Or thinking about transitioning to Lightning Knowledge but don’t know where to start? You’re at the right place. Let’s take a quick tour of Lightning Knowledge and dive into how one might build a bridge from Classic to Lightning Knowledge.
A Brief History of Lightning Knowledge
It’s been about 2 years since Salesforce Knowledge took the leap into Lightning Experience, giving Salesforce users a more consistent and powerful way to customize their knowledge base. The initial release of Lightning Knowledge came with a set of limitations, making many hesitant to transition from Classic to Lightning Knowledge. Since then, Lightning Knowledge has grown more robust and more streamlined with Salesforce Service Cloud and Community Cloud. Here’s a quick timeline that highlights the most exciting Lightning Knowledge features over the last 7 releases.
If you are one of the early adopters of Lightning Knowledge, I’m sure these new features brought you lots of smiles and perhaps tears of joy along the way. If you’re closer to the tail end of the latest releases and are still cautiously assessing Lightning Knowledge, read on.
So, what’s so great about Lightning Knowledge?
At the risk of stating the obvious: Lightning Knowledge is compatible with Lightning Experience. Lightning Experience is the future. All new Salesforce releases are focused on Lightning features, and starting in Winter ’20 release, Salesforce will activate Lightning Experience for all organizations a rolling basis. (Sorry Classic, you are still loved and will be remembered fondly).
Now, assuming that most of you have switched to Lightning Experience, Lightning Knowledge gives your end users a seamless experience so they do not have to switch back and forth between Lightning and Classic to access Knowledge. Imagine a service agent working in Lightning Service Console, using many of the nifty Lightning features to resolve cases. When it comes to finding a Knowledge article or drafting a new article, the service agent has to switch back to the Classic Interface to access Knowledge. It interrupts their workflows and gives them an inconsistent experience.
Lightning Knowledge also provides the administrators a consistent configuration experience, harnessing many Lightning Experience benefits.
✔ Record types
✔ Actions
✔ Lightning Components
✔ Files Related List
With Lightning Knowledge, you can configure Knowledge the same way you configure other Salesforce objects — fields, page layouts, etc. You can even change the record type of an article and handle attachments through Files related list rather than attachment fields!
Sounds great! If Lightning Knowledge is that awesome, why hasn’t everyone switched?
While Salesforce is focused on enhancing Lightning Knowledge, some of the limitations include:
- Archived articles cannot be deleted in Lightning
- Versions 30 and above do not show in Lightning
- There are no star ratings for articles
You can find the complete list of limitations here.
Another barrier to using or migrating to Lightning Knowledge — and probably the biggest hurdle to overcome — is that change is hard. For organizations that are using Classic Knowledge extensively (think Classic Knowledge with hundreds of data categories, multiple article types, multi-language, complex translation and approval processes around articles), switching to Lightning Knowledge is a big undertaking.
Migrating from Classic Knowledge to Lightning Knowledge is like building a bridge. There are 4 main building blocks for this bridge: Knowledge Setup, Permissions, Declarative Features, and Custom Development.
Prior to the Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool in Spring ‘19, each of these block was cumbersome to build. Here’s a picture of what it used to take to build this Classic-to-Lightning bridge:
- Knowledge Setup: Moving from article types to Knowledge record types is difficult. All article types need to be consolidated into one in order to enable Lightning Knowledge. And the new Knowledge record types and custom fields need to be created manually. After the metadata is set up, in order to migrate article data into the Knowledge object, articles need to be exported one article type at a time, and then imported into the Knowledge object with the corresponding record types.
- Permissions: In Classic, CRUD permissions are controlled per article type and Article Actions per Public Group. In Lightning, CRUD are controlled on the profile and permission set level. Hence, as part of the transition, you need to adjust the profile or permission set for the users who need to view and edit articles.
- Declarative Features: The declarative configurations that are impacted need to be reviewed and updated, including:
- Page Layouts
- Validation Rules
- Approval Processes
- Workflow Rules
- Process Builder
- Reports that reference old article types
4. Custom Development: The custom development components that are impacted need to be reviewed and updated as well, including:
- SOQL queries
- Visualforce pages that reference article types
- Apex code that references article types
As you can see, it is not a fun process to migrate from Classic to Lightning Knowledge… until now!
Enter Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool
With the Spring ’19 release, the Salesforce Lightning Migration Tool is now generally available. The Lightning Knowledge Migration Assistant does most of the heavy lifting, making the bridge building process much easier for us. It automates the first building block with a few clicks, and provides a post-migration checklist as the blueprint for the remaining building blocks.
With Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool, the Classic-to-Lightning Knowledge migration steps are now simplified greatly:
- Knowledge Setup: Run the Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool and record types and custom fields are automatically created with your article and file data migrated.
Then follow the post-migration checklist to complete the validation process.
2. Permissions
3. Declarative Features
4. Custom Development
And that’s it! You have transitioned from Classic Knowledge to Lightning Knowledge! You can find more details on the Lightning Knowledge Migration Tool here.
Amazing! How do I get started?
Start with doing a readiness assessment across technology, process, and people. Are there any Lightning Knowledge limitations that are deal-breakers for your organization? What is the level of effort needed to complete the post-migration steps for declarative and custom development features? Does moving to Lightning require a change in your knowledge management process? Is there an opportunity to streamline your process? Are you adequately preparing your people for this change? Do you have the resources that are needed to roll out Lightning Knowledge?
Once you have a good understanding of what needs to be done, you can begin planning and scheduling for the transition. You must perform the migration and validation in your full-copy sandbox first before Salesforce enables it in your Production org. It takes thorough planning and execution to make the transition to Lightning Knowledge successful. And we are here to help.
Take a look at the resources listed below that Salesforce provides on this topic and feel free to leave a comment on any insights, lessons learned, or questions that you may have.
