The setup is one-time but consequential. Design the taxonomy carefully with Knowledge owners, configure visibility per profile, train article authors on tagging, audit periodically. Skipping the taxonomy design produces categories that do not match how users actually search; the cleanup is painful.
- Design the category taxonomy with Knowledge owners
Workshop with the Knowledge team. What dimensions matter for filtering: geography, product, issue type, audience. Each dimension becomes a Category Group.
- Enable Data Categories in Setup
Setup, Data Category Setup, Enable. The feature is available with Knowledge editions.
- Create the Category Groups
Up to 5 active groups. Name per the dimension (Geography, Product Line, Issue Type, Audience). Document the rationale.
- Build the category trees
Within each group, build the hierarchy. Up to 100 categories per group, up to 5 levels deep. Match the structure to how users mentally categorize.
- Configure Category Group Visibility per profile
Setup, Data Category Visibility. For each profile, pick which categories from each group the profile can see. The configuration is the access control layer.
- Train article authors on tagging
Authors who do not understand the categories tag inconsistently. A 30-minute training covers the taxonomy, the tagging UI, the rationale.
- Audit article-to-category coverage quarterly
Pull articles without category tags or with sparse tagging. The audit catches gaps before they affect search quality.
Top-level dimensions. Up to 5 active per org.
Up to 5 levels of nesting per group. Deeper trees more specific but harder to maintain.
Per-profile setting controlling which categories the user can see.
Internal App, Customer, Partner, Public KB. Works alongside Data Categories for access.
Allowed; an article can apply to multiple geographies or product lines.
- Category Group Visibility misconfiguration hides articles users need. Test as a representative user profile after every visibility change.
- Deleting a category strips the tag from every article that held it. Plan category changes carefully; restructures are operationally heavy.
- The 5-active-group limit binds for highly diverse global operations. Combine dimensions or use secondary categorization via custom fields when the limit binds.
- Articles without category tags do not appear in category-filtered search. Audit coverage quarterly to catch gaps.
- Authors who do not understand the taxonomy tag inconsistently. Training is the difference between a clean Knowledge base and a category mess.