Standing up a Solution Manager role in 2026 is rarely the right answer; the feature is legacy and new investment goes into Salesforce Knowledge. For orgs that still operate Solutions, the four-step routine covers: assign the Solution Manager permission to designated users, define and maintain the Solution Category taxonomy, run the review-and-publish workflow continuously, and plan migration to Salesforce Knowledge as part of the Service Cloud modernization roadmap. This guide covers both the legacy operation and the migration path; treat the legacy operation as a temporary state while the migration is planned.
- Assign Solution Manager permission to designated users
From Setup, search Profiles. The Solution Manager profile grants the Manage Published Solutions permission plus standard Service Cloud access. Assign the profile (or the equivalent permission set) to two to five users who will own Solutions curation. Resist the temptation to grant the permission broadly; Solution quality requires a small dedicated team rather than every agent self-publishing. Document the Solution Manager team in the Service Cloud runbook so future admins know who owns Solutions curation. Train the assigned users on the review-and-publish workflow before activating their access.
- Define and maintain the Solution Category taxonomy
Open Setup, search Solution Categories, and design the category hierarchy. Top-level categories typically map to product lines or major issue types. Subcategories drill into specific feature areas or scenario types. Each category controls Solution visibility for agents and (if customer access is enabled) for customers. Apply categories to every published Solution; uncategorized Solutions are effectively unfindable. Schedule a quarterly review where the Solution Manager team prunes stale categories and adds new ones to match the evolving product. Document the taxonomy decisions in the Service Cloud runbook.
- Run the review-and-publish workflow continuously
Train support agents to submit a Solution whenever they resolve a novel Case. Submitted Solutions arrive in the Solution Manager queue in Draft status. The Solution Manager reviews each one: confirms accuracy with the submitting agent, edits for clarity, assigns categories, adds links to related documentation. Once ready, the Solution Manager promotes the Solution to Published. Track the publishing throughput as a KPI; a healthy Solutions database publishes 5 to 20 Solutions per month depending on the org size. Below that, the catalog grows stale; above it, the curation team may need help.
- Plan migration to Salesforce Knowledge
Identify the migration target Knowledge license (Salesforce Knowledge is included in many Service Cloud SKUs). Map Solution Categories to Data Categories. Export Solutions through Data Loader. Clean the data: retire stale Solutions, merge duplicates, refresh categorization. Import into Knowledge as Articles with the right Data Category assignments. Migrate the Solution Manager team to Knowledge Manager roles. Test the migrated content in a sandbox before going live. Plan the migration as a quarter-long project, not a weekend cutover. Document the cutover plan in the Service Cloud modernization roadmap and communicate the change to the support team well in advance.
- Solutions is in maintenance mode. New Service Cloud features (Einstein Article Recommendations, Knowledge-based deflection bots, multi-language support) require Knowledge, not Solutions. Plan migration on a defined timeline.
- Uncategorized Solutions are effectively unfindable. Agents search by category; Solutions without categories never appear in search results. Make category assignment a mandatory step in the publish workflow.
- Solution Manager quality matters more than quantity. A few curated Solutions outperform hundreds of contributor-submitted ones. Resist the temptation to grant the role broadly across the agent team.
- Migration from Solutions to Knowledge is a content project, not just a data move. The category taxonomy, the article quality, and the agent training all need rework; budget a full quarter.
- Solutions does not support multi-language content. If your org needs to publish in multiple languages, migration to Knowledge is the only path; Solutions has no investment plan for that gap.