Comment
A Comment in Salesforce is a textual note attached to a parent record, typically used to capture updates, status notes, or contextual annotations that do not belong in a structured field.
Definition
A Comment in Salesforce is a textual note attached to a parent record, typically used to capture updates, status notes, or contextual annotations that do not belong in a structured field. The most common Comment object is CaseComment (notes added to a Case during resolution), but Salesforce ships several Comment-style objects: CaseComment, IdeaComment (on legacy Ideas), FeedComment (on Chatter Feed Items), Solution comments, and custom Comment objects on partner packages. Each Comment captures the author, the timestamp, the body text, and the parent record reference. Comments are queryable, reportable, and often surfaced inline on the parent record's UI.
Comments matter because they capture the conversational layer of Salesforce work. A Case's structured fields tell what happened; the CaseComments tell why it happened, what the agent tried, and what the customer said. Without Comments, the audit trail loses the narrative; with them, the next agent reading the Case understands the full context. Salesforce's modern Service Console surfaces CaseComments prominently in the Case feed; Chatter FeedComments behave similarly for Chatter posts. The Comment pattern persists across many objects because the use case (free-text annotation with author and timestamp) is universal in CRM and service work.
How Comments work across Salesforce objects
CaseComment, the canonical example
CaseComment is the Salesforce standard object for notes added to a Case. Each CaseComment has CaseId (parent), CommentBody (text), IsPublished (visibility to customer through portal or email), CreatedBy, CreatedDate. Agents add CaseComments throughout the Case lifecycle to record what they tried, what the customer said, and what comes next.
Public versus private comments
CaseComment's IsPublished flag determines whether the customer sees the comment through Email-to-Case or Experience Cloud surfaces. Internal notes stay unpublished; customer-facing updates publish. The distinction is one of the most important per-comment decisions agents make routinely.
FeedComment for Chatter
FeedComment is the comment object on Chatter Feed Items. Each FeedComment carries the comment body, the parent Feed Item, the author, and the timestamp. FeedComments power the comment threads under Chatter posts and the Best Answer mechanism on Chatter Questions.
Comment objects on legacy products
IdeaComment (on the retired Ideas product), Solution comments (on the retired Solutions product), and similar comment objects exist for backward compatibility. Modern equivalents typically use FeedComment or custom Comment objects on the replacement product.
Reporting on Comments
Reports on CaseComment surface agent activity: comment count per agent, time between case open and first comment, average comment length. These metrics correlate with case quality and agent productivity. FeedComment reporting underpins community engagement dashboards.
Comment storage and retention
Comments accumulate. A Case with 50 CaseComments is not unusual for a complex resolution; a Chatter post might have hundreds of FeedComments. Storage planning matters at scale; archival of old comments may be needed for very large orgs.
Mentions and rich text
Modern Comments often support @mentions (notifying users) and rich text formatting. FeedComment supports both natively; CaseComment is plain text in many orgs but can be customised. Mentions trigger notifications, which is one of the strongest drivers of cross-functional collaboration in Salesforce.
Common pitfalls
Three patterns recur. Comments with sensitive information that get accidentally published through CaseComment.IsPublished produce compliance findings. Free-form comment text resists structured reporting; structured fields beat free text for any metric. And comments accumulating without archival can balloon storage for large case populations.
How to use Comments effectively
Comments are mostly captured during operational work; the configuration touchpoints are the publish-status defaults, mention permissions, and reporting setup.
- Decide CaseComment IsPublished defaults
For inbound Email-to-Case, decide whether responses default to Public or Private. Most service orgs default Public to keep customer-facing communication transparent.
- Add Comment-related lists to Lightning record pages
Drop the CaseComment related list (or the Activity Feed) on Case Lightning pages so agents see comments inline.
- Train agents on public vs private comments
The single most important Case-quality training topic: when to publish and when to keep private. Sensitive information published accidentally produces compliance findings.
- Build Comment activity reports
Report on CaseComment.CreatedBy and CreatedDate to measure agent activity, response time, and comment-quality patterns.
- Plan archival for high-volume orgs
Comments accumulate; archival policy keeps storage predictable. Decide based on regulatory requirements and storage cost trade-offs.
- CaseComment.IsPublished accidentally set to true on sensitive comments leaks data through Email-to-Case or Experience Cloud surfaces.
- Free-form comment text resists structured reporting. Use structured fields for anything metric-bearing.
- Comments accumulate. Plan archival for high-volume orgs; storage grows predictably with case volume.
- Different Comment objects (CaseComment vs FeedComment) have different fields and behaviour. Pick the right one per use case.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- CaseComment API ReferenceSalesforce Developer Docs
- Cases OverviewSalesforce Help
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Comment.
- Chatter FeedSalesforce Help
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He runs salesforcedictionary.com to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
Q1. What is a Comment in Salesforce?
Q2. Which type of comment is tied directly to a Chatter post?
Q3. Why mark a Case Comment as public versus private?
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