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Full Category, Ideas entry
How-to guide

How to migrate from Category for Ideas

Most orgs migrated off legacy Ideas years ago. Remaining migrations involve preserving historical idea data and choosing a modern equivalent.

By Dipojjal Chakrabarti · Founder & Editor, Salesforce DictionaryLast updated May 19, 2026

Most orgs migrated off legacy Ideas years ago. Remaining migrations involve preserving historical idea data and choosing a modern equivalent.

  1. Inventory legacy Idea data

    Query Idea, IdeaComment, Vote. Document idea count, categories, and submission history. Decide whether to migrate the data or preserve it in place.

  2. Choose a modern replacement

    Experience Cloud Q&A with Topics, Chatter Questions, custom Idea object, or a third-party integration (Pendo, ProductBoard). Each fits different use cases.

  3. Rebuild category structure

    Whatever the replacement, recreate the Category structure as Topics, custom picklists, or third-party tags. The taxonomy was useful; do not lose it in migration.

  4. Migrate historical ideas

    Map legacy Idea records to the new surface. The conversion is one-time; plan it before retiring the legacy Ideas zones.

  5. Retire the legacy Idea Zone

    Once data is migrated and the replacement surface is live, retire the legacy Idea Zone. Keep the Idea object data queryable for audit but stop accepting new submissions there.

Gotchas
  • Category for Ideas references in pre-2020 docs are historical. Treat them as such.
  • The legacy Idea object still queries but the UI is largely retired. Plan replacement before relying on it.
  • Categories preserved poorly during migration to flat Topic models. Plan the taxonomy carefully.
  • Voting and comment data has no direct equivalent on Chatter Questions. Custom-object replacements preserve the model better.

See the full Category, Ideas entry

Category, Ideas includes the definition, worked example, deep dive, related terms, and a quiz.